Just Go Limp

where you least expect.

“We are London Business School, where rigorous thinking meets real world impact.”

We accelerate transformation for organisations, preparing leaders to navigate complexity with confidence, not just to lead, but to define the future. London Business School. See what we can do for your organisation at London the EDU. No matter what it comes, I am going to take the opportunity to use this introduction

to make an announcement. And the announcement is that I've retired from a few things. I've retired from Zuma. I don't care who you are, we're never going to meet on Zuma again.

“I've also retired obviously from FaceTime, and I've retired from lunch.”

Not all lunches because there will be exceptions I expect, but I've retired from ever

talking about work whilst my mouth is full, basically, so I'm never going to eat and talk

professionally ever again, and I don't really want to have lunch because it's like it's like a soft bomb in the middle of your day, and then it's 345 and what you're going to do now, and you've spoiled your dinner. So lunch is over, as far as I'm concerned, but the big one is that I've retired from stress. It's just over, I've had enough of it throughout my life like everybody, and it's

time to call a halt to it, so I am formally retiring from stress. So if you're going to bring pain of any kind, forget about it because I am no longer prepared to be a part of it, so that's the big announcement, so thank you very much for listening. I don't normally hydrate the podcast in order to talk about personal matters, what I'm saying, but on this occasion I think it's important, you know, thank you for all your questions

and comments, and let's have a question now. Hello Bill, this is Edith, my question is how can you exit a party politely when you've just walked in and you realize you made a huge mistake in coming. Thank you. Edith, I feel you, as the young, say, and I think anyone over 32 is not actually allowed

to use that expression, but I just did, so forgive me, but it's a very good question and it's something that I've had to deal with on many occasions, which may not surprise you.

“I think the best thing to do is immediately ask someone where the ladies' room is, or”

if you prefer, where the bath room is, I don't even know if it's okay to say ladies anymore,

because I always feel I hear some other scoundrel man saying ladies, like they used to

say in the '70s, I think, when people would say, "I'm bringing my lady like some sort of medieval prints, and they would dress in velvet and silk," which always made me, you can imagine, it was unsettling. But you ask where the bath room is, immediately, and then you just find the bath room and see if there's a back exit.

If there's not a back exit, just fake it for a while, do a circle, and just go to the door, and just hold your head up higher. It's not your fault that the party doesn't work, and just hit the street and laugh all the way home. It's so exciting when you leave a social gathering, I find.

I always have to remind myself that there's always the door, a great friend of mine called

Alan used to say, "There's always the door, and it's a wonderful thing to be reminded of." So you have every right to go home. I went to a social gathering, which I had to attend recently, and the writer Julian Barnes was there, who I know to meet occasionally, and he said to me, "We were talking last night,

So this is the other suggestion that if you make it to the garden, and there's a garden

wall isn't too forbidding, leg it over the wall. Why not?

“You can do it, maybe you should always wear leisure slacks to parties.”

I know my team, my open mouth, that I use the word "slacks," there's nothing wrong with the word "slacks." It's a generational thing, but if you wore sort of flexible or stretchy leisure slacks, now we're all in trouble, everybody says stretchy, leisure slacks three times really quickly. I bet you can't know, neither can I, but if you want to wear clothes that allow you to jump

over the wall, and I apparently did jump over the wall, he said, "I jumped over the wall, he said, "Yeah, you jumped over the wall to get away from my party." I said, "Well, I did a lot of jumping over walls in those days, you'll have to forgive me." Anyway, it just made me laugh.

I can't remember who that was that jumped over the wall, but no, I can't remember a lot of things about whoever that was who did a lot of things. Now, remember driving past what used to be called Camden Palace once, not long ago, or quite a long time ago, on the way home from work, and I saw a cue around the block. It's a music venue in Camden Town, obviously, in London, and there was a cue way round

“the block, and I just remember that I used to jump that cue on a regular basis.”

I would just black my way, and I would never, we would never cue.

We would always say, "We're with the band," or some equally unlikely, you know, Bolshev. And we would go in, and I just can't remember how I would do something like that anymore. I've forgotten how to do that. Anyway, it's a lost skill. It's like when my friend, because I don't remember anything, my friend rang me and said,

"Do you remember going to see Dr. Feelgood in Liverpool?" And I said, "Sure, I sort of remember going, I know I went, I can't remember anything about it." And he said, "You must remember." He said, "It's when you invented the just-to-go-limp method for the bounces," and

I was like, "What?" He said, "Yeah, the just-to-go-limp." And apparently, I invented the just-to-go-limp, which is, "You go-limp, so they can't pick you up." I mean, it's another lifetime, it's another world.

But really, you can just spin on your heel, just wait until they've settled down after the little ripple after your arrival and play with some party food or pretend to pour a drink and just walk out that door and rejoice. You know, any party you can skip, rejoice is my view. Hello, my name is Elena, a basketball living in Hastings, and I confess that I judge people

by the cleanliness of their shoes. I find that people in the UK do not care much about shoes shining, in Bilbao, where I am from, there are two shoes that are seen that would bun you from polite society. What are your feelings about this? Elena, I understand.

I was at the wedding, not that long ago, when somebody that I've known since I was

young, came up to me and said, "I never thought I'd see you in a pair of black shoes.

Because when we were young, we only wore brown shoes. Because black shoes, you would have been an outcast, had you worn black shoes. And if you'd have worn black shiny shoes, you'd never get a girlfriend, forget about it. You had to look like you didn't give a damn that you were so sensitive and so concerned with the state of the world or with art or with nature, that you didn't have time or inclination

to attend to your personal appearance, all of which was fictional obviously, because we were all intensely concerned about our personal appearance. So I don't remember when I started shining my shoes, but I must have got to a certain age where it just became too daft to continue to have scuffed looking shoes like I don't give a damn, because it was such it was so sort of embarrassingly obvious that you did.

I did actually say to a friend of mine once, "Stop impersonating the poor. It's bad manners." You know, it's vulgar, because he had lots of money and stuff and he drove a car that was actually an astray and he wore rags most of the time and I had to say to him impersonating

“the poor is not a thing, you know, it's not something you should be involved in and he”

was well past the age of attempting the I don't give a damn and he was in no way did he

So therefore I'm with you, really.

“If I see someone in my contemporaries walking along the street and they're still doing”

that thing, I cross the street to be honest with you.

So to conclude never trust anyone who doesn't polish their shoes, so that's simple, because

if they don't polish their shoes, they're up to something, don't worry about it. My bill, Matt here from Lewis, any such six, now I share your points on too much coffee being a bad thing, but worse is calling it "Expresso," which I noticed you did in the recent episode, I'm really sorry. It may have just been a slip of the tongue now after one too many Espresos, or if I'm

being really pedantic in Italian, Espresi. I'm sorry for being a pedant about this, but it prompts my question and it also relates to your banning of certain words and phrases. What are you most pedantic about and conversely, what are the things are you aware that

you have a mental block or a blind spot about?

If it helps, you've prompted me to stop using the words amongst and whilst. Thanks Bill. Matt, thank you. Yeah, know you're quite right. I was thinking about it, I was writing the word Espreso the other day, and I looked

to see because somebody brought it up in a text and I looked to see how they'd written it and they had written "Expresso," and I was about to write Espreso, but I changed it to "Expresso," just to be polite, but I know that "Expresso" is wrong, and it's good of you to point it out, and I'm grateful for it.

“But I think "Expresso" has entered the language, I don't know whether we're ever going”

to read the language of it, but we will put it on the band list, how about that? And then you're as for Espreso, come on, Matt, give us a break. But that is a blind spot, you've identified it, have I got other blind spots? I don't think it's a blind spot, I think it's just righteous. But when people say "Bord" of it gets to me, because I'm of that age, it's bored with

anyone would tell you that, but I think it's too late. It's now you see it written by, you know, quite grown up people, you know, it's spored off, but it just goes through me like a thing, it really, it makes me physically uncomfortable. Gifted, I expect we put that on the band list, you know, gift was got by perfectly

well without being verbalised.

“Fordantic is a harsh word, I think, in particular, my colleagues suggest might be a more”

accurate word describing my relationship with objects, for instance, I do like things to be aligned, I am particular about, I'm somebody who does the washing up halfway through dessert, you know, and I leave, like, not that I ever give dinner parties, but when I used to have to attend dinner parties, I would be doing the washing up well early, because I couldn't bear the idea of all those plates not being washed up.

Let me see why dishwashers were never a thing for me.

I remember we got a dishwasher once, but the idea was you had to wait until the dishwasher was full up, so there was on occasion you'd be required to go to bed with a box full of dirty crockery under the sink, and you'd think I can't really, how am I going to relax? So I would secretly go into the kitchen and quietly wash up and hope not to get busted,

because it used to drive people insane, used to make them, I mean incandescent, they'd say we have a dishwasher, but I never got used to a dishwasher, I don't have one now, I'm not actually there's nothing to wash up, because I never cook or eat at home, I always eat outside, so there's only ever one teacup, one saucer, and one spoon, that's the only washing up that ever takes place in my apartment, so which is the way we like it, or not

we, that's the royal we. Other than that, you know, you're getting a picture is emerging, I'm pretty pedantic about the placement of stuff, and I don't want a lot of it about, on the plane when they don't come and take your tray away, I get up and take my tray, as soon as I finish the food, I don't want anything around once it's finished, I want it gone, and I'm not

alone in this, I know there are other people like me, maybe one day we'll meet, and we might become friends, and we might do things together, and we could take trips and, certainly,

we might have a tie made, with an insignia on it, we could form a club, be a very exclusive

“club, and it would be intensely private and very, very, very tidy, talking of ties, it makes”

me think of something that's been all our minds here, and it advised for some time, which is something I get quite excited about, which is what they call merch, and I'm keen to start making decisions about merch, but it's a tricky business, and it must be approached with care and with gravitas, obviously, and I might need some help, so if anybody out there has any idea for merch in terms of illidbyes by Bill Nye, would you please contact us on

@illidbyes by Bill Nye on Instagram, and if you have any ideas for items that you would like us to produce, we have some ideas of our own, but we need help, so please put your thinking cap on, and think what we might produce, it's exciting, in fact, a thinking cap is not a bad idea, what are we going to put on the thinking cap, maybe you could think about that.

And now it's time for what could be argued is our most popular feature, and that is the banned words list, these are words or phrases that our listeners passionately want removed from the English or indeed any other language, and we have one from Jade, and she says, "As if bottomless brunch wasn't bad enough, I heard somebody on the radio the other day refer to it as "Boty B" exclamation mark exclamation mark exclamation mark exclamation

mark from Jade, or even staggeringly worse, a cheeky Boty B. It took me a minute, says Jade, to understand what they were talking about, I was absolutely outraged.

“I think I'm absolutely outraged, I think I'm actually absolutely outraged with you,”

I mean, how could people, it's so elaborately awful, I mean, it takes thought to be that embarrassing anyway. Other banned expressions from the get-go, I think we all agree, that that is, it's been a long time coming, and it should have gone a long time ago, so from the get-go has been up before the entirely fictional permissions committee, and has been banned from the English

or any other language. My bad, yeah, come on, we've used it, we've abused it, I haven't personally, just for the

record, I have never said those words together, my and bad, but my bad, I thoroughly agree

with it, but remember, I'm just the mouthpiece here, these are sent in by significant listeners to the illidbyes podcast, I'm just the mouthpiece, so some of my agree with, some of them I'm quite relaxed about, we just referred to cheeky as a problem, and now we have somebody that's sent in cheeky in itself as a bad word, as in having a cheeky glass of wine, or a cheeky nando's, a cheeky nando, it's childish and pathetic, says our listener,

“and needs to be stopped forth with, well, I think forth with might be a contender for the”

banned word list right there with all due respect. This episode's playlist is called "Ill Hold Your Code" dot dot dot dot, and it's a lively handful of songs, which I hope will bounce you around the kitchen, including a song by a prince called breakfast can wait, which is one of my favourite prince songs, I think we all probably can guess why breakfast can wait, breakfast can wait because, you know what

I'm saying, come on, don't make me spit out, but apart from anything, it's a really kind of unusual, what we used to call beat, and it was swinging around a kitchen while you blend your juice, or wherever it is you're doing, we might have to knock up the permissions committee for blend your juice.

The second song, not in any particular order, is from Sarah Schuch, which is a great rock

the Disarmers, talking to myself, which contains the verse, I got bones in my backyard

“so I stay shut up in my house, I got a five for a high card, got a gun in case I go”

out, which makes me laugh, and another song in this playlist is Louie Louie, a very very famous rock pop tune, which everybody has recorded, everyone my age and some younger,

but you've never quite heard it like this before, and it's very satisfying, and then

a song called '17 by an unpronounceable band, I did actually Google the pronunciation once, maybe I should do that again, they're called S.J.O.W.G.R.E.N, so I challenge you all to pronounce that, S.J.O.W.G.R.E.N, there's a phrase in it where she sings, "Don't worry" and it just makes me go weak, the way she says, "Don't worry." She says, "Don't worry, I'm not in a hurry, I'm not going anywhere, I'm not going anywhere." It's really that

the way she says, "Don't worry, I'll find it completely irresistible." If she said it to me in real life, I'd be her slave, and the name of the song is '17. The playlist is rounded off with blue gene by David Bowie, one of my favorite David Bowie dance tunes, and the video for this, or at least his appearance on British television when it was first released, was a sensational performance and deeply influential in terms of my dance

floor technique. He did a couple of moves on there, which I've never really left

“to me. I think if you watched the the video, the official video for another”

favorite David Bowie song called "Boys Keep Swinging," which just makes me laugh, "Boys know when to go out, boys know when to stay in." I mean, it's just great. "Boys can learn to drive, and everything." It's just so dull and so witty, but the shapes he throws in the front man thing that he does on that. I think is the state of the art. I think it's just that's all you need. I think it's because it's, you know, there is irony, but it's also

very, very attractive. So that's this episode's playlist, and I hope it gets you bouncing

a little bit because they're all of a certain level of energy. You'll find all of these songs

“in the show notes, and you'll also find a link to Spotify.”

This week, or this episode's book, is by John Chiever, it's called "Oh, what a paradise it seems." And John Chiever was an American writer who wrote through the 40s and 50s about American suburban life, middle-class American life. This book is called "Oh, what a paradise it seems." And I'm going to read you a little bit. It's set in what might be described, and in fact, is described on the back of the book as an idyllic

American village. But as you might suspect, all is not well in the idyllic American village, chapter one. This is a story to be read in bed in an old house on a rainy night. The dogs are asleep, and the saddle horses don't be untray, can be heard in their stalls across the dirt road beyond the orchard. The rain is gentle and needed, but not needed with any desperation. The water tables are equitable. The nearby river is

plentiful. The gardens and orchards, it is at the turning of the season, are irrigated ideally. Almost all the lights are out in the little village by the waterfall, where the mill so many years ago used to produce gingham. The granite walls of the mill still stand on the banks of the broad river, and the mill owners' house with its four Corinthian columns still crowns the only hill in town. You might think of it as a sleepy village out of touch with a changing

world, but in the weekly newspaper, unidentified flying objects are reported with great frequency. They are reported not only by housewives hanging out their clothes and by sportsman hunting squirrels, but they have been seen by substantial members of the population such as the vice president

you were bound to notice the number of dogs, and that they were all high spirited, and that they

were without exception mungerals, but mungerals with the marked characteristics of their mixed parentage in breeding, you might see a smooth-haired puddle, an air-dale with very short legs, or a dog that seemed to begin as a collie and ended as a great dane. These mixtures of blood, this newness of blood, you might say, had made them a highly spirited pack, and they hurried

“through the empty streets late, it seemed for some important meal, asignation or meeting.”

Quite unfamiliar with the loneliness from which some of the population seemed to suffer.

The town was named Janice after the Milona's first wife. One of the most extraordinary

things about the village and its place in history was that it presented no fast food franchises of any sort. This was very unusual at the time and would lead one to imagine that the village suffered from some sort of a friction, such as a great poverty or a lack of adventure among its people, but it was simply an era on the part of those computers on whose authority the sites to fast food franchises are chosen. Another historical peculiarity of the place was the fact

“that its large mansions, those relics of another time, had not been reconstructed to service nursing homes”

for that vast population of the comatos and the dying who were kept alive unconsciously

through trailblazing medical invention. At the north end of the town was Beesley's pond, a deep body of water shaped like a bent arm with heavily forested shores. Here were water and greenery, and if one were a 19th century painter, one would put into the foreground a lovely woman on a mural bent a little over the child she held and accompanied by a man with a staff. This would enable the artist to label the painting flight into Egypt, although all he had meant to commemorate

was his bewildering pleasure in a fine landscape on a summer's day. So that's about the size of it for this episode and thank you for all questions. I hope you've enjoyed wasting some time. I hope we have successfully helped you take a break because that's our mission. And if you've got any comments, please do go to the Instagram thing which I don't understand and we do read them and we do get to hear from you. That illidbyes by a bell night.

“And thank you for listening and remember, it's nice to be in part, but it's important to be nice.”

Bye-bye everybody, bye-bye. Illidbyes by Ben Nye is produced by Alice Williamms and Keira Gregory. Angelic Somers pronounced Somers is the assistant producer and Bill Nighai is the executive producer. Business is in flux, AI and geopolitics are reshaping industries and competitors are emerging where you least expect. We are London Business School,

where rigorous thinking meets real-world impact. We accelerate transformation for organisations, preparing leaders to navigate complexity with confidence, not just to lead, but to define the future. London Business School. See what we can do for your organisation at London. Hello Thomas, can you tell us about the BMW M-Shawin? You have the best internet and a lot of tips from the telecom. Yeah, it's free, but at the time there is a fan of it.

We are home, and we have all the games of the FIFAVM 26-20 Live. If you are now, the best internet is home, with Magenta TV for 9-0 from the 90-month-long telecom. (crowd cheering)