Vittorio Radice

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and three, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:23

My castaway this week is a retailer. He knows what makes us shop. His skill at luring us into his stores has made him the hottest property on the British High Street. Born in Como, Northern Italy, the son of a furniture shopkeeper, he rejected the family business, failed to become a farmer, toyed with accountancy and finally became a buyer of merchandise for department stores. Aged thirty-three, he found himself in London working for Habitat. He became its managing director, and from there moved to Selfridge's, one of London's oldest and in the mid-90s one of its dustiest department stores. Here he effected a transformation which practically doubled the value of the company. He did it by making the store his theatre, a place of spectacle with big brands as the star performers. Now he's being asked to perform the same trick for Marks and Spencer. He's promising us life stores from whence we will rush home with excitement, having bought all the products we could possibly want to make our daily lives more enjoyable. Shopping, he says, is entertainment. There is nothing else. He is Vittorio Radici. I suppose, Mr Radici, in a society which cares about what colour its loo paper is, we're just sort of sitting here waiting for you to seduce us, really, aren't we?

Vittorio Radice1:33

Well, that's the idea. I think, you know, we are bombarded with so many information and activity and messages and and today the customer

Vittorio Radice1:42

I really believe the last thing they want is product, is more emotion, is more an activity, is more seeing something that's never seen before.

Presenter1:50

But if they want the product, I mean they have to have the product. That's the philosophy, isn't it? That they can take it home and c recreate what it is you've told them could be theirs.

Vittorio Radice1:59

Well, but a product is the manifestation of an emotion. First you need to attract the customer for something different than the product, for something that they really want to see, they desire, they want to be part of. And then they want a souvenir as they exit the store, and they want the souvenir in the shape of an object in a shopping bag.

Presenter2:18

It's

Vittorio Radice2:18

It's part of being part of a big family.

Presenter2:20

But do you think we care more these days about our homes than we ever did? I mean, this great flush of programmes, you know, the changing rooms syndrome. Is it sort of something that matters more and more to us now?

Vittorio Radice2:33

Well, my strong belief is that in the past two decades we've been attached to brands.

Speaker 42:38

Mm-hmm.

Vittorio Radice2:38

to brands in cars, in mobile phones, in fashion, definitely. But I really believe that the next decade will be about making sure that we don't only superficially wear these brands, but we also live those brands. We live a life that is full. And it's not only the outside, but it's also the inside. And the inside, of course, is our house.

Presenter2:57

You've called it showing in as opposed to showing off.

Vittorio Radice3:00

Exactly. And it's about really making sure that the people

Vittorio Radice3:04

begin to believe or or really live a life in full.

Presenter3:08

Hmm.

Vittorio Radice3:09

not only with the label on the outside, but also with a label on the inside.

Presenter3:12

So there's all these people out there, particularly on a Saturday afternoon, yes, in in our high streets across the land, who are desperate to show in and have lots of disposable income in order to do that.

Vittorio Radice3:24

They are desperate today to invite friends at home and say, This is my house, this is the way I live, this is the way I believe, this is the way I act, this is what my real life is.

Presenter3:34

Okay, more of that to come. Let's pause for your first record. Tell me why you want this one.

Vittorio Radice3:38

The first one is Manu Di Bango, and uh a saxophone player from Cameroon, and is full of depth, his voice, his presence. And I went to see him several times at the Royal Festival all in in London, and he's somebody that can run an audience with no problem. Just by with his presence, without saying a word, everybody goes mad.

Presenter4:27

Manu di Bango and Juana di Lambo and we don't know what that means to be fine.

Vittorio Radice4:31

I don't think so.

Presenter4:33

But memories for you, you tell me, of of going on a buying trip in uh in where? In Ghana?

Vittorio Radice4:39

In Ghana and in Mali in particular, I remember taking a a small plane and uh going over the river Niger until we landed in Mopti, which is basically Timbuktu.

Presenter4:47

Uh Uh

Vittorio Radice4:50

in search for product to sell at habitat. We were met by a guy called Piscor Baba, and the only thing he had to offer was this uh magnificent uh bronze bells which he used for his goats. Uh And we thought they were made fantastic Christmas decoration to sell to customers. We ordered, I think it was probably 5,000. So they got the whole village around to try to make these 5,000 bronze bells in time for shipment in September to be able to sell it in the stores at Christmas. And I think they got around to, I don't know, probably 24 bells, and then they gave up and they all left. And we were expecting these 5,000 bells, and only 24 showed up.

Presenter5:32

But this was not that long ago. This was early 90s, I think.

Vittorio Radice5:35

This was already 93 or 93.

Presenter5:37

So you I mean, I know that's what you've done originally, go on such s international shopping trips. I mean, you went on doing it. Is that even when you were sort of quite senior? Is that because you possibly enjoy doing it?

Vittorio Radice5:46

Simply in j

Vittorio Radice5:48

I think traveling more than in a buying trip, is traveling is discovery. And there are very original ideas in the world and and your brand or your way of doing business is an amalgamation of ideas that you take from all over the world and then it becomes your collection basically.

Presenter6:04

But it must get more difficult to find anything original than new,'cause so many people have been I mean we've all seen it, you know, with the Chinese leather boxes, you know, or the kind of Indian coffee tables, ostrich eggs.

Vittorio Radice6:14

It's not that. I'm sure that uh similar product are sold all over the world. It's the association of one, two and three product that makes your collection, your brand, your shop, the way you do business. So it's the association of those ideas and the association is only yours, because somebody else will associate different things. And it's that ability that you have.

Presenter6:31

You know,

Presenter6:33

Mm.

Presenter6:35

But do you think we the British are quite good at that in the sense that we are naturally quite eclectic? We always have taken in influences from abroad, haven't we? It's the nature of our colonialism of being a maritime nation. We've always loved things Indian, Japanese, Chinese.

Vittorio Radice6:48

Yes, the nation of travelers is Britain. But I must tell you that all fashion designers, if they want inspiration, and I know that for sure, and I can guarantee they all come to this country for inspiration, because here you see those associations that are freely done by the people. You can just walk around London and you see that the way we dress, the way we act, the way we eat rocket salad and curry, or the way we use an orange jumper and then a pair of pinstripe trousers. And it's that idea that do stimulate the creativity of those designers and then put the label on and say, look what I've done.

Presenter7:26

But we feel that of course that we have an inferiority complex about it, that we don't have our own style. I mean, you're Italian, you have a very much an Italian style. You know, all the French have their own style. We worry that we have a kind of disparate style and we're always clutching at other people's.

Vittorio Radice7:42

Well, I would say the word that he used before, eclecticism. That is the true British style. And he should be very proud about. Because being eclectic is probably the most difficult thing to do. But if you can achieve that, you should be very proud. Record number two. Sotel Seno de Peschi, born under the sign of Pisces, describing really very much the 1968 generation and ten years after what they end up doing. People that have thought of a certain

Vittorio Radice8:12

ideal and and future and really vision of what they wanted to do, and then ended up doing something little bit more modest and but still searching for one thing in common, love. Still searching for

Vittorio Radice8:27

somebody that loves them, or for them to give love to somebody else.

Speaker 48:31

But senior demand

Speaker 48:34

Emarina se net la

Speaker 48:39

And believe it us on the healing.

Speaker 48:44

And the vanity is born.

Speaker 48:52

Prina Vakya Kanso

Presenter9:00

Antronella Venditti and Sotto Il Seno dei Pecci under the sign of Pisces. It's really the Italian version of All You Need Is Love, isn't it?

Vittorio Radice9:08

Yeah, so you can say that.

Presenter9:09

And takes you back to your boyhood in Como, where you must have developed this eye for things, or this taste, or this style, did you?

Vittorio Radice9:12

Yeah.

Vittorio Radice9:18

Well, you know, uh born uh in a family of uh furniture retailers, you know, although uh I must say that uh the style and quality and design element of of the um pieces that my father was selling was a little bit strange, to say the least. In what way? Well, you know, he had uh really, you know, if you want to uh classify the Italian version of eclecticism.

Vittorio Radice9:42

Which quite didn't didn't quite work.

Presenter9:44

Yeah.

Vittorio Radice9:45

And it's reproduction and and things like that. But, you know, at least uh

Presenter9:49

Bad taste, are we saying?

Presenter9:53

You saying cocktail cabinets?

Vittorio Radice9:55

Yes, a little bar, a little uh television cabinet where you can hide everything. But uh that is fine. I think it's at least, you know, around the table every night uh the language that was spoken was about customers, what they wanted, what they didn't like, what price point they wanted to pay. So it was the retail uh language that we spoke.

Presenter9:59

But uh

Presenter10:12

But you were seriously bored by it, weren't you?

Vittorio Radice10:14

I wanted to change. I really wanted to come away from that. I wanted other discussion around the table. So I studied farming. I went say retail is not for me. And I wanted to almost live open air and and I had this vision of farms and beautiful places in this uh long open spaces instead of being you know claustrophobically closed in a in a shop or you know in a factory and I had that vision.

Presenter10:39

How long did it last? Not very long, obviously.

Vittorio Radice10:41

Not very long, not very long. It lasted for uh two and a half years. He was not me, and and therefore I had to abandon that. Uh, and then

Presenter10:47

And then you w did your military service, I read, and ended up shopping?

Vittorio Radice10:49

Yeah.

Vittorio Radice10:51

I ended up no I ended up in the army. I was based in a wonderful town Padova, which is north Italy, near Venice, and I was assistant to the general. But in Italy being assistant to the general you have to perform other things than so driver, but also taking wife shopping and typing, which you know you can imagine how a fast typer I was, but all those things that you know as part of the army service and part of your development in the army.

Presenter11:20

And then your mother found you a nice, neat, and tidy job as an accountant, is this right?

Vittorio Radice11:25

Exactly what you

Presenter11:26

Exactly what you want, that aren't sure.

Vittorio Radice11:27

It will not answer.

Vittorio Radice11:28

knowing my personality inside out. She found that this job, which again lasted probably a couple of months, and then this firm in in fact was opening something in Libya development. And they asked me if I wanted to go and I went. And the development was

Presenter11:35

Uh

Vittorio Radice11:44

To furnish some fittings for department stores that were built at the time.

Presenter11:48

But uh do you recall then at that time and we'd you'd be in your early twenties by now, wouldn't you?

Vittorio Radice11:53

Yeah.

Presenter11:53

Do you recall a kind of burning ambition I've got to do something, I've got to get out of here, I am going to make something big in my life?

Vittorio Radice12:01

No, I always played life for the day. Live today, don't worry about tomorrow. Just make the best out of today. And if I had some aspiration was to see the world, and the fact that there was an opening to go to Libya, I said, Yes, I'll do it straight away. So it was my first uh trip overseas, if you want, and I enjoy every minute.

Presenter12:25

Record number three, tell me banner.

Vittorio Radice12:27

Uh report number three is Spinfloyd brain damage. Being Italian, you listen to all the English songs, you know, you grow up with it.

Vittorio Radice12:35

But you don't really don't capture words because first of all, you know, it's difficult to capture anywhere. You capture words of songs. But also you don't really get the translation. And it's only when I came to London, probably twenty years after, that I said, Oh, that's what they meant And it's fantastic.

Speaker 412:49

The tick is in my head.

Speaker 412:56

The lunatic is in my head.

Speaker 413:03

You miss the blade.

Speaker 413:07

You make the change.

Speaker 413:10

You rearrange me till I'm sane.

Presenter13:14

Pink Floyd and brain damage. It's one thing, Vittorio Radici, understanding pop songs or having some schoolboy English, but then when you move into big business, as you did, you'd worked for AMC, hadn't you, um, Associated Merchandising Corporation in Italy, and then you came here and worked for Habitat.

Presenter13:30

How do you I mean, it must be a completely different language in business.

Vittorio Radice13:35

Yes, very, very different language, and in fact quite difficult at the beginning. I recall going to first uh meetings and really understood very little, very, very little, and the only thing I had to do is to nod and say yes and to any question they asked me.

Presenter13:49

So they thought you were en enigmatic?

Vittorio Radice13:49

So they thought you were

Vittorio Radice13:51

Probably.

Presenter13:51

Probably. But but but how general uh generally did you find I mean

Presenter13:56

Was it easy to embrace the culture of British business, or was it something quite difficult and exclusive?

Vittorio Radice14:02

No, I think actually the opposite. I think that it is a very open culture and a culture that will embrace changes very fast. In France, in Italy, in Germany, in the rest of Europe, it's much more traditional, it's much more classic, it's much more conformist. You look at fashion in Italy, it's quite predictable. Everybody wears a blue jacket and a pair of grey trousers, a blue shirt and a blue tie.

Presenter14:23

And brown shoes, quite often brown suede shoes. I'm looking under the table as I speak.

Vittorio Radice14:26

Yeah.

Presenter14:29

I mean, you say that the retail business accepted you and is quite eclectic, but the city and the establishment is quite different. They were suspicious of you and your brown suede shoes, weren't they?

Speaker 414:29

Yes, in fact.

Vittorio Radice14:39

I think you know,

Presenter14:40

Yeah.

Vittorio Radice14:42

No, I I think in uh in all all jobs I've done so far and in my career and I've done four.

Vittorio Radice14:48

I always took a different view of the problem and the development of the company. If that view doesn't reflect certain parameters and people really are unable to measure you against those parameters, they become nervous. But it's only by

Presenter15:01

Hmm.

Vittorio Radice15:02

Taking the vision in a different way, that you make the difference, that you really make space between you and the competition.

Presenter15:08

Sure, but you had an unconventional approach, didn't you, in the sense that you don't particularly like making grand plans, do you? Like setting out and seeing where it takes you?

Vittorio Radice15:17

I think you just said a very, very true thing. And even yesterday I was giving the example of deciding to drive from London to Rome and everybody will go out to W Smith and buy a map and draw a line. And the the straight line is the motorway. But if you took the motorway, you will miss the beautiful countryside. You will be the small hotel, the small tratoria, the small relay where you can stop. And it's about facing the problem and this and making decision as the problem comes and not try to decide everything three years before something has to happen. And it's about to have that ability, that confidence to say, I'm taking the company this way and I will make decisions when I need to make those.

Presenter16:00

Record number

Vittorio Radice16:01

Perform.

Vittorio Radice16:02

Nusrat Fatihali Khan, the first time I heard this musician, which is probably now ten years ago, is just filled my curiosity, my desire to visit those lands, to listen to those musics. And Nusrat is about two schools. One is Kuali, which is the religious music, and one is Ghazal, which is the love music. And he's really a storyteller and just probably sings as he comes.

Presenter16:28

And this is the religious music, Nothing Without You.

Vittorio Radice16:30

Nothing without two.

Presenter16:31

Some Uh Come on,

Speaker 416:43

Sarda Kaleanji Nai Lagarna, Sarda Kalean Ji La Ilagarna, Sajerna Perabina, Sajerna Pera Bina

Speaker 416:58

It's hard to love it even before

Presenter17:01

Misrat Fattah Ali Khan with Terabina, Nothing Without You. So, Vittorio Radici, you eventually became managing director of Habitat UK. You're credited with turning around the business from 7 million losses to 10 million profit, and Selfridges snapped you up. You'd have been 39 years old. In you went there and decided to reinvent the department store. Give me the concept in bold terms. The first time you told them what you were going to do to it, what did you say?

Vittorio Radice17:28

First of all, call me Vittorio. You've been saying Vittorio ediction for too long now.

Presenter17:32

Okay.

Presenter17:33

Victor Radish is a good thing.

Vittorio Radice17:38

Um

Vittorio Radice17:40

Department stores, they were born uh probably one hundred and fifty years ago as a meeting place. Just think about the souk of Marrakech, which is probably the biggest store in the world, if you take it as as one. But people don't go to the souk because they need to buy. They just go to meet friends, to have their tea, to look at beautiful things, to have a chat, to walk around, to see things. And department stores were exactly that. They were this spectacle of goods in this wonderful building that came up in every city centre, in every major city around the world, where people went to meet.

Vittorio Radice18:16

And if you start with that constant and say it is a meeting place, you come away from being the classic retailer and you become what we wanted to be, a place.

Vittorio Radice18:26

And then you fill the place as an image of any city centre with shops that don't have a logic, but they just position themselves next to each other and make the life of the city centre.

Presenter18:40

So there were big shops and small shops. You could buy a T-shirt for five pounds. You can buy a bicycle.

Vittorio Radice18:44

You can buy a bicycle, you can buy a piece of bread, you can buy uh medicines. That's what a street is.

Presenter18:50

Sure, but essentially because of big business today, you need to convert all of the time those people who come and meet into purchasers, don't you? People who buy things. And yet you were saying, look, come here, you can try on a five pound T-shirt, you can try on a £500 T-shirt, you know, you don't have to buy it today. It's a very kind of expansive, democratic, yes, but was it sort of strictly business? How did you know it would convert into profit?

Vittorio Radice19:14

Because the temptation of buying is stronger than any other impulse uh that we have. And and therefore, when you are exposed to something and you say, Oh, I never knew I needed that, but I really want it even the classic customer

Vittorio Radice19:30

is not in need of product anymore. Even the classic customer has his wardrobe or a wardrobe full.

Vittorio Radice19:37

And there's no more space for anything. And we need to convince them to get something new.

Vittorio Radice19:42

and to throw away something old. And that's the secret.

Vittorio Radice19:45

And you're not going to do that only through product, because if you do that through product, you're going to be in competition for the lowest cost, the lowest price. You have to do that by creating a place where people want to be, they want to be associated with, they want to visit.

Speaker 419:51

That

Speaker 419:52

Hmm.

Speaker 419:58

Hmm.

Vittorio Radice19:58

They heard about. I'm looking for product, we're looking for emotion.

Presenter20:03

Ah, we'll have more of that in a minute. Let's have some music. Oh, here's some emotion. Tell me about this.

Vittorio Radice20:08

Actually, this is a fantastic song because in the middle there it says uh there is a a small um

Vittorio Radice20:17

what do you call line that says what makes people buying even they need absolutely nothing. So it's not a shopping uh song, but is is on the way.

Speaker 420:32

Coza Sarah

Speaker 420:35

What if Auschira di Tasca de Nonchisto?

Speaker 420:43

Cosazara

Speaker 420:46

Yeah, I'm checking.

Presenter20:58

Luciodala singing Cosa Sara whatever will be and buying something when you don't really want it and whatever else he was saying about it anyway.

Speaker 321:06

Rail series.

Presenter21:08

So there we are, Vittoria. You pulled it off at Selfridge's. It's now got all the top brands. It's got the Royal Warrant and it's got record profits, but it's lost you. Marks and Spencer's poached you, took you when you took up your job earlier this year. How big a decision was it to make that move?

Vittorio Radice21:25

It was not an easy decision, as you can imagine. You work hard and you see something that is really taking shape and is successful and everybody recognizes. But you want a different challenge. You want a different way of doing business. As you know, Self is all about brands. Mark Expencer is all about one brand. Marcus Spencer his own brand.

Presenter21:40

As you know

Presenter21:44

Marsus Fencer is only

Presenter21:46

But undoubtedly, you know, you were hot property and the package will have helped'cause you got a whatever in excess of a million golden hello and um and a salary with a hundred percent potential bonus in a four hundred and twenty five thousand.

Vittorio Radice21:56

Twenty five.

Vittorio Radice21:58

To get a bonus you have to work very hard. It's not easy to get 100% on the top league, don't worry.

Presenter21:59

But as long as you do it.

Presenter22:04

But but the recent controversy, which I'm sure you'll have read about, is is not so much about the salary you got he he got, mister Glaxo got when he came in, it's the salary he stands to get if he goes out, even having failed, twenty two million pounds. I mean, do you have some sympathy with the view that that's pretty immoral?

Vittorio Radice22:20

My contract, I can assure you, is very, very different. So and I cannot judge uh somebody else's contract, but I can assure you that my contract is uh is not on that league. Is uh is at the position ten thousand something.

Presenter22:23

Uh

Presenter22:29

Is a

Presenter22:31

You wouldn't be expected to pay for failure.

Vittorio Radice22:34

No.

Presenter22:35

The problem is you've got to have another success.

Vittorio Radice22:37

Yes, well we'll try to be as successful as possible, you know. Well, of course we'll

Presenter22:39

Well, of course we but that's the problem, isn't it? When you when you pull something off once, everybody thinks, Oh, well, we'll get him in, we'll pay him a lot of money and he'll do the trick for us. It's not that easy, is it?

Vittorio Radice22:47

That's his name.

Vittorio Radice22:49

It's not easy, it's not easy. And I always say that jobs are not a quick win operation. You don't go in and expect to make miracles in twenty-four hours. I had I had this is my fourth job in my career. And this job is first job ten years, second job six years, third seven years. That's the kind of timetable that I think you need in order to build something substantial, something that makes a difference, something that the people really want to be associated with.

Vittorio Radice23:14

And it's not a quick win. You know, I'm there to build something for the long term.

Presenter23:20

Record number six.

Vittorio Radice23:21

Um Buena Vista Social Club, well, you know, what can I say about a small uh group of people that for so long have been playing in a Cuban bar and then all of a sudden discovered, and they've been there forever anyway. So, you know, the world has discovered, but you know, their fulfilment has been there for all their life. Fantastic.

Presenter24:06

Buena Vista Social Club with Chan Chan. So the challenge at Marks and Spencer's is to capture a bigger tranche of this homewares so-called market, which is, I think, about £20 billion worth per annum in this nation. And Marks and Spencer's got less than 2% of it. That's what you want.

Vittorio Radice24:22

Yeah, but Marx's best has got less than

Vittorio Radice24:24

Yes, that's what you want. So the opportunity is enormous.

Presenter24:27

How are you going to do it?

Vittorio Radice24:30

Again, try to do it in a different way than the conventional home furnishing store, which probably the country has too many of already. Every single area will be organized as a house. And it will not be organized as the furniture department, the lighting department, the chin and glass department. But it will really be a journey of discovery through our store.

Presenter24:52

And so there'll be dedicated stores for this. Yes. It won't be.

Vittorio Radice24:55

Yeah.

Vittorio Radice24:57

added on to existing stories.

Presenter25:00

Maybe.

Presenter25:06

I see. And there's an area called Relax.

Vittorio Radice25:08

Yeah.

Presenter25:08

Which is very close to your heart, because you, when you travel the world, or indeed you make a point, do you not, of going abroad at least twice a year, to relax, in the sense of being massaged.

Vittorio Radice25:18

I don't know how you discovered that in Thailand, Irene. Yes, yes. I just came back from a wonderful experience at a spa in Thailand called Chiva Somm. It's the first place where I went. There is not a hotel with a spa, but there's a spa with rooms with 65 therapists, and you get rejuvenated. And that's what I need, probably more often than twice a year at the moment.

Presenter25:19

Tell me how you discovered them in China.

Presenter25:42

But it's I mean, obviously you take it very seriously. It's important to you. It is part of how you cope with the pressures of your job, isn't it?

Vittorio Radice25:48

Yes, yes, yes. I think I I treasure my holidays, I treasure my travels, I treasure because I see different things and it's by seeing different things, meeting different people, being exposed to different cultures that you come back and get recharged and find new ideas.

Presenter26:01

And can cope with the task in hand? And is the task in hand eventually to be the chief executive, as you were at Selfridge's, of Marks and Spencer's?

Vittorio Radice26:07

Absolutely not. I got my work cut out just by putting together this new life store. But it's a stepping stone, isn't it? I mean, you're going to go for the top job eventually.

Presenter26:12

But it's a stop

Presenter26:14

I mean, you can

Presenter26:15

Why else would you have left the top job in suffrages?

Vittorio Radice26:18

But this is a fantastic adventure, and what I need is adventure. You know, I don't like to be in a job for too long where it gets too established. You want to move on.

Vittorio Radice26:28

Record number seven.

Vittorio Radice26:29

Number seven, Ramen, and actually this is a very nice record because this reminds me of two years ago we took a long trip with my family, my wife Gemma and two kids, drove from London to China. And this particular song reminds me of a moment that I will never forget in my life. And we were crossing the mountains between Iran and Turkmenistan. And it was six o'clock in the afternoon in this wonderful scenery, wonderful place, almost like a desert with full of hills. And my son Tomas just put this C D in the car. I will remember forever.

Presenter27:36

A. R. Raymond's Mumbai theme tune. So you're a a traveller, Vittorio, um and when you retire you're going to hit the hippie trail, I gather.

Vittorio Radice27:45

Yes, absolutely. I'll just leave it and go. A journey without a destination, and make the journey the destination, as they say. You're really going to do this? Yes, yes, yes, I can't wait.

Presenter27:52

You're really going to do this?

Vittorio Radice27:55

I was as you know, I was indecided about the book to bring. And you know, one of the books is the Manual to Cross the Sahara, because that was one of my dreams. Just leave it and do it without a time scale. The beauty is, you know, I'm going on holiday, for example, next week, I'm going to Crete.

Vittorio Radice28:12

I only booked the first night of the hotel because I just want to see the island. I just go around and see it and make the decision as it happens.

Presenter28:19

But you might have to stay somewhere terrible. You might get uncomfortable. You might think, why am I wasting my valuable time?

Vittorio Radice28:23

Think about valuable time. You're on holiday, relax.

Vittorio Radice28:28

There's no schedule. You do what you want, you know. Do you want to sleep here, you sleep here? You want to eat here, you eat here, you want to go?

Presenter28:34

I understand that, but therefore, wouldn't you really like to work for yourself? Wouldn't you like to open some private business that you could just run and be only answerable to yourself? Surely.

Vittorio Radice28:43

The problem with running a private business you have to work twice as hard.

Vittorio Radice28:47

Yeah.

Presenter28:47

And nobody's paying you.

Vittorio Radice28:47

And nobody's playing you.

Vittorio Radice28:50

You say

Presenter28:52

Meanwhile, we spirit you away to this desert island. You're not going actually on holiday at all. You're going off to a desert island. Would you hate it? Would you change it? Would you die on it because you'd be so bored?

Vittorio Radice29:03

No, no, no. I'm sure I will enjoy. It's my spirit to to really make the best of what I have is and and really enjoy the moment, enjoy where I am, enjoy the people I meet. If it's desert, I'm a desert island, that'd be it, no problem.

Speaker 329:17

Last record.

Vittorio Radice29:17

The last record is Yusundur and again, another African singer from Senegal, which was seen few times here in London at the Forum. And it's just another ability to get the audience going like nobody else. Just everybody stand up, everybody dance, have a nice wonderful night.

Speaker 429:35

Guri Sambali.

Speaker 429:38

We are gonna leave it

Speaker 429:42

I'm going to get you mine.

Speaker 429:45

For the end, we end, for the end

Speaker 429:55

Come and dairy super

Speaker 429:57

And it's all made of all I feel.

Presenter30:05

Birima by Yusundo. So if you could only take one of those eight records... I mean you've had a job getting in touch with it.

Vittorio Radice30:11

Intact

Presenter30:12

How you choose one I didn't know, but choose one.

Vittorio Radice30:15

At the moment, today I will choose the last one, Birima.

Presenter30:18

But ask you again next week and if you're not sure.

Vittorio Radice30:19

Without change.

Presenter30:20

Okay.

Presenter30:21

Changes the essence, changes exactly what you do, huh?

Vittorio Radice30:24

Absolutely. And I think is we live and we learn and we build our life with changes. And what we think today is different than what we thought ten years ago and it's different than what we're thinking ten years from now. And we need to learn how to live with that. Yeah.

Presenter30:40

Uh

Vittorio Radice30:40

Change is everything, you know, learning, progressing.

Presenter30:45

Now a book, and you can't change this. Once and for all, you've got the Bible, you've got Shakespeare.

Presenter30:49

Which extra book would you like to take?

Vittorio Radice30:51

It's a book that uh a friend of my wife just uh gave her as a present very recently. And when I saw it I said, If this book was not written, it's the one I would like to write. And it is a book about uh small things in life, you know, in a French book, La Première Gourget Dubiere.

Presenter31:10

The first sip of beer.

Vittorio Radice31:11

The first sip of beer. And if you think about we perform so many actions every day. The first sip of beer when you're thirsty and you can feel it going down and that's fantastic pleasure. Reading on the beach.

Vittorio Radice31:22

Going to bed.

Vittorio Radice31:24

when the lineage has been changed. Fantastic. Or walking around uh London when the the grass in the park has just been cut and the smell and appreciating all the small elements makes life so wonderful, so wonderful.

Vittorio Radice31:40

But most of the time we forget about.

Presenter31:42

And what about your luxury? We allow you one luxury.

Vittorio Radice31:45

One luxury, uh because it's a desert island, I have to have a pair of sunglasses because my eyes unfortunately they they're very weak. But uh uh What brand?

Presenter31:50

Uh

Speaker 431:50

Uh

Presenter31:51

Uh

Vittorio Radice31:57

Don't forget about the brand to day. Just a pair of sunglasses.

Presenter32:01

Vittorio Radici, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Vittorio Radice32:05

Thank you. Thank you very much. Very enjoyable.

Speaker 332:14

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.