Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Irreverent broadcaster who hosted The Big Breakfast and TFI Friday, and famously bought Virgin Radio.
On the island
Eight records
The Electric Light Orchestra was the first band I ever saw in concert, and I saw them at the NEC in Birmingham when I was 14 years old. I went with my brother, who was my hero.
this was the first single I ever received. I'd say it it's the first thing I've ever bought but it's it wasn't because it was in my stocking and Ernie is the unstoppable sunny disposition and Bert is the reluctant grump but he's a reluctant grump who secretly wants to be happy like I think a lot of people.
There was a girl called Tina Yardley, who was the my first proper girlfriend, who was and I'm sure still is beautiful. And um there was another girl in our class called Julia and Julia was going to go on Piccadilly radio that night on a thing called School in College Rock and she was allowed to play some records and I begged her to play It Must Be Love for Tina and I and she did.
Here, There and EverywhereFavourite
the most beautiful song I've ever heard. And I think that the reason the Beatles get get us and move us to tears is because of the the tunes. The tunes are just devastating.
Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of
It's a beautiful song and I remember I was on a ferry from Long Island going over to Bridgeport and I had it on and I was on the back of the boat and the sun was shining and life was sweet.
I think it says everything good and bad about this silly thing in our lives called money.
I think that it's as much about him as about maybe the mythical philosopher he's talking about because at one point he says my job is turning lead into gold and I think that we think what he does is easy and every time he thinks of a song it's another piece of lead and he's got to turn it into gold.
Queen, without question, I think the best live band, best performing band the world's ever seen. If you see the song on video from the 1985 Queen concert at Wembley, there's a line in the song and he says um you've given me fame and fortune and everything and I thank you all. And then he looks at the audience and he gives them a wink
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:09Where have you been and what have you been doing during your four and a half years off the airwaves?
I've been doing um I've been living a life. Um I've been mostly in the country, uh by that I mean in Surrey, in a little cottage, two bedroom cottage, with a few chickens … and the local pub and the pond. Living a life meaning got my life back, isn't it?
Presenter asks
5:55Can you explain how the death of your father [when you were fourteen] fired the starting pistol in this race?
I actually can't remember the drive being as um concrete before he died as opposed to after he died, so I presume it must be that. But it didn't at the time I didn't hear a starting gun. You know, there wasn't a man there anymore um to protect us, so you better get on with this life.
Presenter asks
9:08Why did you leave school?
I left because I had an incident with a teacher who uh punched me and um I I just didn't think it was right that you could punch someone and I just got up and walked out, went home.
The keepsakes
The book
Charles Dickens
I'd wa what I'd do is I'd be on the island and I'd wait until I felt at my happiest, and I'd say, Right, because this is the happiest I've been since I've been here, today is Christmas Day and then I'd wait for three hundred and sixty five days and every year that would be Christmas Day.
The luxury
Swimming goggles with prescription lenses
I didn't really care about taking anything, to be honest, but I thought that what what might be useful would be a pair of swimming goggles with prescription lenses in, because then I could it would be terrible to have a beautiful sea and not be able to see it properly, because it'd be all blurred. That's why I take the goggles, but also because if they were prescription and I ever lost my glasses, I could wear them instead.
Presenter asks
13:39What do you think you learned from Timmy Mallett?
Perfection, um attention to detail, thoroughness, the fact that everything can be done. And we don't have a say no. And you have to have original ideas.
Presenter asks
20:23Why do you think walking out is a recurring theme in your life?
I was always getting to points with authority and where I thought I'd done enough for them to trust me, to let me carry on doing what I was doing. But I realized that in order to keep surprising, you have to go deeper and deeper down a road, and sometimes that might be the wrong road. And so they have to put a stop to it at some point. At the bottom of it, honestly, I all suspected that I was going to get fired. … It's total insecurity, yeah. And I always jumped before, you know, I was pushed.
Presenter asks
25:44Do you think you had a breakdown?
Yeah, I think I think I had a breakdown. Yeah, I definitely had a breakdown. … Yeah, I had a I had a moment of honesty with myself, which effectively I suppose may have been a breakdown. And, um, I thought, Right, we've got to do something about this. We don't sink, we we all swim. What are we going to do? And for once I stopped and and didn't do anything, which is exactly what I needed to do.
“I've had a very fortunate life, a very colourful life. I al always think that if I go tomorrow I've had my fair share.”
“I was a control freak. I was totally in control of the programme. But because i I was the only person who knew what I wanted out of the programme. It's not a defence, it's just a a fact.”
“I was definitely a bully. I was outrageously horrible to quite a lot of people. But it's because I was so frustr frustrated, you know. I just couldn't understand why they couldn't understand.”
“Nobody teaches you how to go from from from nothing to having fifty million quid in the bank. I'm getting better at it, that's all I can say.”