Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A satirist, columnist and critic best known for his skewering parodies of public figures from DH Lawrence to Victoria Beckham.
On the island
Eight records
I think had one of the two great voices of the twentieth century. She did quite a lot of quite depressing blues songs, but this is more of an uplifting one ... And I I'm quite a a morning kind of person. I I wake up optimistic and go to bed pessimistic.
When I said Nina Simone was one of the two great voices, Kathleen Ferriero's the other. Uh and in many ways for though they're obviously incredibly different people, they both had a kind of basic warmth to their voice um and just profoundly moving, and especially on this song I think.
this is one of the great times of my uh childhood, and of course you could only see it during the holidays. Crossroads, the great you couldn't call it a soap opera, you would have to call it a drama, set in a motel outside um Birmingham.
this friend of mine, Charlie Miller, he said there's this new album by a new band called Roxy Music and he played it and I just thought it was the most um amazing thing. I still think it's um an extraordinary album, the f the first Roxy Music album. I also thought it'd be appropriate to the Desert Island um Sea Breezes by Roxy Music.
this song uh is often in my head, and especially nowadays when we have a flat quite near Waterloo Bridge, and it's Waterloo Sunset.
this is Peter Sellars and Irene Handel doing a a parody of the critics. I think it was in then those days Critics Forum. Peter Sellers does all the voices. Irene Handel plays a kind of posh, I think it was sort of Dillis Powell she was probably imitating because this was in the fifties. And it's just very, very funny.
Into the MysticFavourite
this is my daughter Tallulah singing a Van Morrison song Into the Mystic, um, accompanied by my son Silas and my wife Frances and two of To Lula's singing group, The Trills. Into the Mystic by Van Morrison is a beautiful song, but I think when Van Van Morrison's voice is rather kind of screechy, uh whereas my daughter's voice is beautiful and it's um It uh it brings tears to my eyes.
Phil Spector, Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich
at the last minute I I had got down Saint Matthew passion. But then I thought, no, no, I don't really have something to dance to. I'm in I'm a terrible dancer, but one of the great joys being alone on the desert I can dance to my heart's content, no one can see me. I think this is also the the greatest pop record ever made.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:35You're comfortable with being a contrarian, are you, Craig?
I suppose so. I mean, if you're not comfortable by fifty five, then that's a very uncomfortable position to be in. Um but I I sometimes think I should have stronger held uh beliefs and opinions. But I always see the other side and then dislike the other side, so I'm always sort of bouncing off people.
Presenter asks
1:31Are there times when you think, Well, I wish I believed in something?
Well, I I believe in basic humanitarian virtues, but if you ask me Do I believe in the EC? Or do I believe that cannabis should be legalised? Or even do I believe in God? I'd come up with different answers depending on the time of day.
Presenter asks
3:00What is it that makes you feel awkward [in offices]?
Um, with offices I don't know what the etiquette is, how long you're meant to speak to each person, uh, whether you're wasting their time, all that kind of thing.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition
the Eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which came out in nineteen ten. It's just beautifully written. People like Bertrand Russell were writing for it. Uh TH Huxley and Edmund Gosse. It would be a perfect Desert Island book, anyway.
The luxury
I like conjuring and I'd like my son's much, much better conjuring than I am. I quite like to kind of, in my competitive way, surpass him. So it would have to be a really good conjuring set.
What did you make of [winning three separate prizes at the British Press Awards]?
I mean, I've been to countless of those awards and they don't really mean anything, but you're nevertheless disappointed when your name isn't called. And so having done my time of it not being called, I was quite um pleased. I also used to think it would guarantee your employment for another year, but actually that's not the case. Number of people are sacked within the year of getting an award.
Presenter asks
11:06What are your memories of early life at home?
Um, very happy. We lived in a place called Westcote outside Dorking, so my kind of roots are in Surrey. You're not meant to have roots in Surrey, you meant to have them in the north or the west or the east. But it's a very nice place, I think, and I still like it.
Presenter asks
12:46Can you remember your first day at prep school?
I remember not necessarily the first day, but going back the first day of each term, just that kind of homesickness I think is unnecessary and uh doesn't help you and maybe makes you have a kind of emotional cut off later in life.
“I write those parodies best when I am sort in a way taking dictation. But of course it's not just parroting what you hear, it's subverting what you hear as well. It's like writing two articles at the time, the surface article which is their voice, and then the other article which is exaggerating all their deficiencies.”
“I think every human being thinks on the outside. I mean, there are lots of people now, like, say, Andrew Neal who are completely establishment figures, but they always feel on the outside. So I don't think it's anything special to feel on the outside.”
“I think pretension is often a good place to start, you know, and it'd be absurd to just read Michael Barrymore's autobiography or something. But I d I think the uh the line between them is much thinner than most people uh make out.”
“I actually when my daughter did at her very first school, little school, she we went to see her doing a kind of ballet or dance some dancey thing, um she was about five. She wouldn't join in, and I was a little part of me was rather delighted.”