Mar 12, 2020
We’re in Malaga with superstar comedian Bill Bailey having tapas by the Cathedral fresh after seeing his latest tour. As well as being sublimely entertaining Bill is possibly the world’s most well travelled comedian and we talk childhood holidays, the Coronavirus, touring, languages, politics, birding, wildlife Indonesia, moths, crazy car rides, free tea, dancing bears, growing up in the West Country, teenage bands and organ playing in crematoriums and so much more, All over a nice glass of Spanish red and some cheese.
On this episode we cover:
Having fun translating things into other languages
How your personality changes in different languages
Sounding very decisive in Spanish
Living a total lie with a foreign spouse
Touring means getting an insight into a destination
Cycling to get to know a place
His childhood holiday in Torremolinos (with aunts, uncles, grandparents…)
Being a big deal when a local Chinese take away opened
Growing up in the area of package holiday booming
His love of wildlife (not fetish!)
How the Coronavirus started with Pangolins in Wuhan
How birdwatching is an excuse to hang out in beautiful places
Suzy Buttress and her Casual Birder Podcast
The giant vulture that freaked him out in the Pyrenees
How twitchers are weirder than birders
Lisa’s BBC colleague who’d run off at the drop of a pager
The Big Travel Podcast’s editor Alex George making a guest appearance
The rather scary carnivorous plant named after Bill
Beating all UK comedians in a pipe smoking competition
Wikipedia deciding his birthday is not his birthday
The house his grandfather stonemason built in the garden
Growing up in his father’s GP surgery
His teenage band Behind Closed Doors (aka behind firmly locked garage doors)
How the worse thing that can happen in Bath is having a bad scone
Being made an honorary member of the Crematorium Organist’s Society
Being accepted as full troll in Norway
Using many of his brilliant travel stories in the show
The old Dutch East India Company nutmeg island in Indonesia
Buying a flight by giving the pilot some cigarettes
Taxis ignoring him in Hong Kong
Apologising for British Colonialism
Being hated as a Colonial in Greece
The residual longing for nostalgia in India
The dancing bears of India
Lisa’s podcasts with India Hicks and Lady Pamela Hicks (daughter of Lord Mountbatten)
Brown people being barred from the hotel breakfast
Dicing with life and death (oh and an Ox) on the Indian highway
Getting lost deep in the desert in a rural sheep station in Australia
How if we had to grade our worst moths, the Siberian Tusk Moth would be in there
His kazoo getting quarantined in New Zealand
Worried you’ve accidentally got a kilo of cocaine at customs
Not wanting the sniffer dogs to get in trouble
Bringing musical instruments back from travels
Lisa’s sitar journey back from India
Buying an unidentified instrument from local musicians in a small village China
Brian May’s guitar being held together by shoelaces
Falling flat in Tartu, Estonia when he asked a pop music question
Estonia’s singing revolution – was it because the singing was just so bad…?
How Talking Heads’ Once in a Lifetime is the perfect soundtrack to whale-watching in the Great Barrier Reef