I Am A Moisturising Freak

depending on where you are on the planet.

“This is Bill Nye and this is ill-advised by Bill Nye,”

which relates to NASA Nates at the same time, which is rare in a podcast title. This is a podcast for people who don't get out much and can't handle it when they do. If you're relaxed at dinner parties and good in bed,

there's nothing for you here. We've had questions from every corner, not that the planet has corners, but every corner of the planet. And we're excited about that.

So wherever you are on the planet, does not disqualify you. Please, if we can help, we almost certainly can't, but we can try. Let's have a listen.

I will try really hard not to make things worse. Hi, Bill. Leslie here from Bristol. Enjoying your advice. I have a question.

A problem. With your propensity for books and fiction in particular, I was wondering how you store your books. Nowhere's where this podcast of your bent for less, rather than more in a room.

“What's your advice someone like me now drowning in books?”

Leslie, as you might imagine, I don't store books. I don't keep them. I used to think that I would, and I used to treat them as if they were kind of

sacred objects. I still have maximum respect for them. And as you may know, I spend half my life reading. But I don't hang on to them. The only books I retain are those that have sentimental value.

Or on the few occasions when people have given me valuable books. I have two or three books which are worth quite a lot of money. And if they're signed either by the author or by someone that I admire or love, I suppose at one point in my life,

I did think I was going to live when I grew up. I was going to live in a book-lined room. But in fact, when I came to the point where I had a room, I didn't want it to be book-lined because it was just too complicated and too much stuff.

And I don't want to keep a lot of books that I'm never going to pick up.

I feel that's sort of wrong. If I'm not going to read them all of the time or regularly, then why keep them? So I take excess books to the Oxfam store. I buy many more books than I'm ever going to read.

And I buy books compulsively. I have two rules in the bookshop. I have several but I have two particularly. And they're both completely random and ridiculous. One is I never buy a book with trees on the cover.

And the other is I won't buy a book if it's got clouds on the cover. Because I've been burned too many times. Leslie, I've been burned by tree covered books and cloud covered books. So that's never going to happen again. I made a vow.

There are other criteria, which I won't go into now. Hello, my name is Geneviève Giroux. I'm a Canadian Belgian based in Los Angeles. My question for you would be about smell, butty smell, perfume smell.

And how do you deal with them if you're in an enclosed space for quite a long time? An elevator doesn't count and they are playing would definitely be something. And how do you address the subject? And what is it comforting smell for you? Thank you so much.

Geneviève, this is a very tricky issue that you've introduced. I have been in enclosed spaces with people who have interesting body odor and it's tough.

I don't think I absolutely never had the courage to tell anybody if they had anything like an unfortunate smell.

On the fewer occasions when it's happened, I've just angled my body as far away from theirs as it's possible.

“Smells I like. I like the smell of marmite. I like the smell of bacon. That's what prevents me largely from being a vegetarian.”

I like the smell of coffee. I think the smell of coffee and bacon always is always much, much more satisfying than the event itself. This is my theory. I like the smell of fresh bread, you know, the usual things. I don't have a perfume. I've never worn, I've never been confident enough to wear a clown or anything of that kind or aftershave.

I always think aftershave was sort of the generation before me. I don't know anybody who wears aftershave. I don't think I do unless I'm losing my sense of smell, but I don't think I am. And for women, I'm not that familiar with perfume's really, so I can't help you in that regard. Although I've never worn a clown or perfume of any kind, I am particularly about soap.

And I'm also a moisturising freak. I am fetishistic about moisturizer.

I have several different smells in my bathroom. I kind of rotate them.

“The other day, I put three kinds of moisturizer on at the same time.”

And then I worried that maybe there would be some chemical reaction and my skin would start to fall off or burn. But it didn't happen, so everybody calmed down. Because I just couldn't make up my mind, you know, between, I did a film in Belgrade once. And my makeup artist gave me Dr. Houshka the Melissa.

And I was scared of on this film, and I thought I was going to mess it up. But in fact, it went really well. And then she gave me this moisturizer. So I put those two things together like any, you know, superstitious medieval present. And I decided that it was obviously lucky moisturizer. So I have to buy it all the time now. So that's a constant in my life.

And that smell of Melissa by Dr. Houshka reaching out for sponsorship is one of the signature smells in my life. Hi, Bel. It's Anne here from Sunderland. I'm thinking about ditching my social media accounts because there's such a time circuit. And I end up just doom scrolling. And I wondered what your thoughts on social media?

“My thoughts on social media is don't go near it.”

I've never had to have. I don't own a computer.

You're either talking to the right person or the exact wrong person. I've never owned a laptop or a computer. I've never touched one in earnest. And I made that decision straight off the bat. I'm lucky. I do obviously. I have an iPhone.

And that's not obviously I have an iPhone. But I have an iPhone. And therefore I carry a computer around in my pocket. But I very rarely do much with it apart from make calls and receive texts. I've never looked at Instagram. I've never tweeted or exed. And if I sound slightly pleased with myself,

it's because I am. I'm really, really, really, really happy that I dodged it. That particular bullet. And I'm not normally that smart. But I somehow, I saw it.

I just saw it coming. I think it was when Facebook started. And they said, you can enumerate your friends. It's like a nightmare. You count your friends. I was working on less contact.

Working quite vigorously on less contact. Not more. So it was precisely what I didn't need. It was precisely my nightmare. And I think if you can ween yourself of it.

Or if you can go cold turkey, I'll hold your coat. Because I think it would be a great decision. We are all in throttle databases and it's damaging. You know, I understand that it causes a level of depression. And sometimes extreme depression, particularly in young people.

And it's like when I do PR, when I do press for a film or a show, it's not digging holes in the street. But by the end of the day, you are absolutely exhausted because there's something about it, which is innately fatiguing. And if you're young with an iPhone,

“it's like you have to wake up every morning and do your own PR,”

which must be very, very grueling and the pressure must be considerable. And if you could eliminate that, and it's the enemy of reading for a start, and I like to read. So the phone has to go off before you open a book. If you can get off it, get off it.

The sky won't fall. There are people who have to have it apparently for work purposes and I understand. But if that's not the case, then let's not go there. Let's wander free. Hi Bill, Katie here.

What are your thoughts on dressing gowns and slippers, as my stylish boyfriend has a vehement of worship to them? Our gowns and slippers are loud. If so, do you have any suggestions that might be up to the standard of this hybrid barn, sartorialist?

He has banned them at his house and my feet get very cold on his kitchen flagstones in the winter months.

Katie, I don't wear slippers, and I've never worn slippers.

And I didn't for most of my life own a dressing gown, but then I went to stay at LeBristol Hotel in Paris, and I arranged to buy, I didn't steal, all the bathroom linen. So I have two LeBristol bath mats. And I also have, I used to have some towels.

And now I have two bath robes, because somebody also bought me one. But slippers, no, I wear last year's loafers. That's what all the two years before. But the idea that he would ban you from wearing slippers,

And you should either, you should get him to reconsider, or there is another option, which is showing the door. Just don't go around there anymore. Or buy slippers that are sort of unassayably attractive. But I don't know, I don't think anyone should be banned from wearing anything in anybody's home.

So I worry about your boyfriend, Katie, just, you know, to be perfectly frank. Hi, Bill. I have the privilege and pain if you like or flying a lot. It would be really helpful to know your thoughts on what to wear for both short haul and long haul flights.

And what travel luggage or accessories you recommend. And just as importantly, what you would avoid like a rash. Unless, of course, rash is a kind of your thing. Yours, Vic from London. Vic from London.

I fly regularly, and the latest development is that I dress up to go flying. And it gives me enormous pleasure. I can't tell you quite why. But I love turning up in an airplane in a suit and tie. And I take my jacket off, and I hang it somewhere sensible.

And then I kick back.

And I watch the other people largely men, it always seems to be,

getting into airplane pajamas.

“I think the day you get into airplane pajamas, the game is over.”

It's never going to happen. I've always worn suits most of my life, even when I didn't have any money, because what would happen would be that I would, when I had no money, and I would do jobs, which required a suit. They would buy me a suit for the gig.

And then at the end, they would allow you to buy the suit, maybe for half price, or maybe for a third of the price. Sometimes they would just say, go and take it. And therefore, I would pay for the suit with the money I'd made from the gig. But I wouldn't have any other clothes, because for a while,

I not only didn't have any money, but I was in a above average mess,

and I could never get anything together.

I could never organize a regular place to sleep, for instance, and I used to sleep on a lot of sofas and couches, and I used to sleep in squats and various places, wherever I could find somewhere for the night. And I hated carrying things. I didn't carry anything I'd accumulated from one place to another.

I would hitchhike carrying the books that I was currently reading, because I couldn't bear to hitchhike carrying anything. So I would leave if I had been working say in Liverpool. I would leave whatever I'd accumulated in Liverpool and start a fresh, which gave me enormous pleasure to be unencumbered.

I've spent most of my life slightly overdressed, because I got a taste for suits.

“I think you put a suit on, and it's done.”

Anyway, so on the airplane, I now dress up, and I wear a tie. It amuses me to be dressed like somebody from the 1940s. And as for luggage, I don't check a bag. The late Great Tom Wilkinson, who I travel with on a couple of occasions. He very glamorously carried a small hold,

and breezed through ignoring the baggage carousel. And it was so kind of glamorous that I immediately vowed.

I would never check another bag for as long as I lived.

And that was 20 years ago, and I haven't. I pass the baggage carousel and try not to look, you know, dismissive of the people who are waiting for stuff. But I do, I feel superior, I feel superior, and I feel... I feel obscurally proud of the fact that I carry no stuff.

I know it's difficult for women, because they need what you might call hair products. So there's a lot of liquids involved, which I don't bother with.

“And also, I think that, you know, if I need hair products,”

I'll buy them wherever I'm going. And in terms of luggage, I carry a very satisfying, basically kind of what most people would call a weekend bag. That's all I take. I'm a big enthusiast of dry cleaning, and I have almost shirts cleaned and pressed the dry cleaners,

and then sheathed. Yeah, none of us in the studio here can survive the word "sheathed," for some reason. And my colleagues, who are otherwise quite professional, and apparently adult, find it absolutely impossible to relax around the word "sheathed."

And therefore, I can go "slip, slip, slip, slip."

“Into my hold-all, with maybe five shirts, well, that's nearly a week.”

So, you know, and then there's shorts and socks. And I'm toilet-free bag, and then I carry a suit bag with a couple of pairs. Maybe three, if depending on the trip, I mean, if it was like a month or something, I'd take three pairs of trousers, including the rather excluding the ones I'm already wearing. And I've already got a suit because I'm wearing it on the plane.

So that hold-all that has been with me for many, many years, and I can highly recommend came. And here again, I'm reaching out to sponsorship from Alfred Dunhill and Co. Other than that, that's about the size of it, really.

And now it's time for what's become a particularly popular element in the whole podcast thing here,

which is the band-word list. People can't get enough. I'd tell you, if we get any more response from listeners, there'll be no words left in the language. There are people that want all kinds of things banned. My bad, absolutely, get rid of that. My bad, where did that come from, even?

If any of your friends use the word "my bad", then they can fly out of your address book. Blue sky thinking turns out to be unacceptable, and punching through the glass ceiling is unbearable and wrong. Any kind of business speak, frankly, is fine if you're in a meeting, but don't bring the meeting to a cafe.

“If you want to really upset me, I love cafes, I live in cafes,”

and I love cafes as much as I love any other aspect of human society. There is a tendency now to take the office to the cafe. And when you walk in your local cafe and they put three tables together, and they've all got their laptops out, and they're all talking impenetrable, business speak. It makes me want to find another cafe.

Thinking outside the box will get you thrown off these premises. This episode's playlist is called "Dance Tunes for Snake Hips". You know who you are.

And the first track is by Prince.

Finally, we're getting around to it. It's called "It's About That Walk". And I'm really, really like it. And there's a lyric involved, which I was going to read to you, and in fact, I'm quite a yearn to read it to you,

because I've discovered in life that there are things that sound perfectly great when Prince sings them, that also sound really uneasy making if I speak them, particularly into a microphone. So you're going to have to trust me on that. I wonder if you can spot the passage in the lyric that I'm reluctant to speak out loud in public.

I wonder if you can spot that. The next song is by an artist who I also have probably come late to, and she's called "Sy, S-Y, Smith". And this is a song called "Good and Strong". Put the kettle on, dance around the kitchen.

Then we have the "Inestimable Jimmy Smith", the great Hammond organ Maestro with Dr. John on vocals, doing a thing called "Only In It For The Money". And that's a really good album.

“If you want to check out the album from which it comes.”

And then again, a read the Franklin with "A Rose Is Still A Rose", which I believe was produced by Lauren Hill. And it's about how a young woman should not despair if she's been deceived into intimacy by a rogue, because she's still a rose despite that.

And it swings like nobody's business. Then we have a live version live from the NASA Coliseum in 1976 of the song "Stay" by David Bowie. And I think it's one of the greatest beginnings of any track ever. So check it out.

And the last track is from a band that are coincidentally enjoying a revival. And they were a '70s band. I knew nothing about until my tremendous producer Alice Williams introduced me to them. And they're called even she isn't quite sure how to pronounce it, but we're going to go with Simone Day.

It could be Simone Day. It could be anywhere at CYM, A-N-D-E. But once again, it'll be in the show notes if you can't remember.

Check it out.

“This week's Book of the Week is The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald.”

And if you haven't come across Penelope Fitzgerald,

I can't recommend her strongly enough. The Bookshop, as it happens, quite sort of coincidentally much later after I read it, was adapted into a film by Isabel Coyjet, the eminent Spanish film director, and she adapted it and directed it. And I was invited to be in it with Emily Mortimer,

who is somebody I admire tremendously. And it's a beautiful book about a woman who tries to open a bookshop in the English countryside in Suffolk. She needs help because she wants to sell. This is in the 1950s.

She wants to sell Lolita, the Nabakoth novel in her bookshop, and there is a resistance to that because it's a controversial book. So she asks Mr. Brondish for his advice. Florence lent forward. You know, Mr. Brondish, there is a certain responsibility about trying to run a bookshop.

I believe so, yes. Not everybody approves of it, you know.

“There are certain people I think who don't.”

I am referring to Violet Gammart. She had other plans for the old house, and now it seems she has been affronted in some way. I'm sure she knows that it was an accident. It was difficult to speak anything other than the truth in Holthouse to Mr. Brondish.

But Florence added, "I'm sure that she means well, means well," said Mr. Brondish. Think again. He tapped on the table with a weighty teaspoon. She wants an art centre. How can the arts have a centre?

But she thinks they have, and she wishes to dislodge you. Even if she did set Florence, it wouldn't have the slightest effect on me. It appears to me, Mr. Brondish, said, that you may be confusing force and power. Mrs. Gammart, because of her connections and acquaintances, is a powerful woman. Does that alarm you?

No, said Florence.

Mr. Brondish ignored, or perhaps had never been taught the polite convention of not staring.

He did stare. He looked fixidly at Florence as though surprised at her being there at all, and yet she felt encouraged by his single-minded concentration. May I go back to my first question. I am thinking of making a first order of 250 copies of Lolita, a considerable risk.

But of course, I'm not consulting you in a business sense that would be quite wrong. All I should like to know before I put in the order is whether you think it is a good book, and whether it's right for me to sell it in Hardborough. But I don't attach as much importance as you do, I dare say, to the notions of right and wrong. I have read Lolita as you requested.

“It is a good book, and therefore you should try to sell it to the inhabitants of Hardborough.”

They won't understand it, but that is all to the good, understanding makes the mind lazy. Florence sighed with relief at a decision in which she had had no part. Then to reassure herself of her independence, she took the single-knife, cut two pieces of cake, and offered one to Mr. Brondish, deeply preoccupied. He put the slice on his plate as gently as if he were replacing a lid.

He had something to say, something closer to his intentions in asking her to his house than anything that had gone before. Well, he said, "I have given you my opinion. Why should you think that a man would be a better judge of these things than a woman?" At these words a different element entered the conversation as perceptible as a shift in wind. Mr. Brondish made no attempt to check this on the contrary. He seemed to be relieved that some prearranged point had been reached.

Well, I don't know that men are better judges than women, said Florence, but they spend much less time regretting their decisions. I have had plenty of time, said Mr. Brondish, to make mine,

but I have never found it difficult to come to conclusions.

Let me tell you what I admire in human beings. I value most the one virtue which they share with gods and animals, and which need not therefore be referred to as a virtue. I refer to courage. You, Mrs. Green, possess that quality in abundance. She knew perfectly well, sitting in the dull afternoon light,

with the ludicrous array of slop basins and turines in front of her, that loneliness was speaking to loneliness, and that he was appealing to her directly.

but while the moment hung in the balance and she struggled to put some kind of order into what she felt or half guessed,

Mr. Brondish sighed deeply.

“Perhaps he had found her wanting, in some respect, his direct gaze turned gradually away from her,”

and he looked down at his plate, the necessity to make conversation returned.

Thank you for listening, and I hope I've helped pass and squander the time.

Although I smuggly, you know, tell you that I'm not, that I'm in the digital dark, and I'm very, very happy about that.

“Just show, luckily, is on Instagram, so I am kind of now in the digital world,”

although I will never really properly directly visit it.

But there you go, and you can reach me on Instagram at ill advised by Bill Nye. I was produced by Alice Williams and Kira Greggardé. The system producer was unusually exoma, pronounced "soma".

“It was produced by Alice Williams and Kira Greggardé.”

The system producer was unusually exoma, pronounced "soma", and it's an iPod production and Bill Nye Ghee remains an executive producer. And that is the correct pronunciation of Bill's name. He'd like me to say that. There's a lot of people going around saying, "Oh, kinds of funny things". But it's Bill Nye Ghee, and that's final.

Hey, can you hear the podcast? The biggest charity event in the world is really through podcasts. Every more than 1,000 podcasts are produced and podcasts, and they're mainly used to organize an organization, and it's a very easy way to inspire them.

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