Those Were The Days When We Used To Work Nights

Bill Nighy (0:02)

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending where you are on the planet. This is Bill Nighy, and this is ill-advised by Bill Nighy. And the clue is in the title as always. And we are here to help you waste time and to be as inconsequential as it's possible for anyone to be. Our mission is to give you a break. Frankly, you can squander time with me, which is remains my superpower. Nobody can loaf like I can. Well, I mean, there's some people who can loaf as good as me, but nobody better. I developed it very early on, and it's my default, and it's my place of peace. I love, I get a thrill. I got my diary recently, and one half, like the weeks coming up, is black with stuff, and the other half is entirely empty. And I think I might frame the empty half, because it came in a hard cover, and I think I might just frame it, because there's a thrill goes through my body when the diary is empty. It just goes through my body like a deep pleasure and relief. So I might have it framed and keep it above the bed.

All right, not above the bed, maybe in the kitchen.

Let's hear a question from somebody somewhere in the world.

Logan (1:37)

Hello Bill, it's Logan from Oxford. I have discovered over the last few years that birds are some of the most delightful things, and I spend a lot of my time just watching them going about their little lives.

Do you consider yourself in any way to be a bird person? And if so, do you have any particular favorites?

Bill Nighy (1:56)

Thank you, Logan. I don't have a favorite bird. I saw yesterday or the day before I went to Folkestone, and I saw a cormorant or shag.

You may have seen those birds that are long-necked and dark, and they fly at speed across the very low and on the surface of the water of the sea, and they're either a cormorant or a shag. When I was a boy, there was a poem that schools taught about the mystery of the Marie Celeste, which was a boat, a ship, that was found entirely crueless and empty, floating in the middle of the ocean with food left uneaten, as if time had just suddenly stopped and everybody had jumped overboard. It's a famous mystery and there was a poem written about it. We would read it out and each boy was given a verse to read each day, each time we read it rather, and you'd take it in turns. If you got the couplet that included the words cormorant or shag, you were king for a day because you would just give it that little bit extra, and the whole class would be wiped out. And the priest, we had priests, couldn't really do a lot about it because they'd have to admit that there was a problem with the word shag, and they were not prepared to do that. So it was always Christmas if you got that line. I know, it's puerile. Obviously, I was a schoolboy.

So if I had a gun at my head and asked, what's my favorite bird, it would be a cormorant or a shag.

Arthur (3:45)

Hi Bill. My name's Arthur from South Wales. I first started listening to your podcast when I auditioned to be in a film that you're in.

It's been six months now, so I'm pretty sure I'm not in that one. I'm 12 years old, so I was wondering if I was your youngest listener. I know there's some plus PG content in here, but my parents loosely monitor what I listen to.

I have this weird thing where I have to sleep the side that my hair naturally flops to, otherwise I really just can't stand it. I was wondering if this is just a natural thing or if you have any other particular sleeping habits that make you sleep better or worse. Thanks, Arthur.

Bill Nighy (4:29)

Arthur, good question. You are not my youngest listener, apparently, I've just been told because we have a young girl called Rada, who we think is probably eight years old, who did have a question and I did answer the question. Anyway, yours is a really good question. I'm sorry you didn't get the part and I wonder what the film was. It was probably, I guess, I'm going to guess it was a film called 500 Miles, because there were two parts in that film for, well, there was one part for somebody your age. Anyway, better luck next time. Yeah, this sleep thing. So you sleep, I wonder why you can't stand it, not sleeping the way your hair grows, flops rather. I suppose because it gets in your, otherwise it would get in your eyes or it would hurt. Sometimes hair can hurt if it gets bunched up and you lie on it in the wrong way. Have I got any strange sleep patterns? Well, it's funny as you get older, these days I have to sleep with my arms down by my sides, and I sleep on my back, and I don't think I used to sleep on my back. I think when I was your age, I think I slept on my side, and I used to sleep all the way through the night. The terrible irony is that when you don't need sleep as much as you do when you're older, young people, teenage boys, for instance, and girls probably, but I only know about boys, they can sleep for 14 hours straight. I haven't slept through the night this century.