If you live down a well with no radio, on Desert Island Discs famous/important people pick eight pieces of music they’d take to a desert island. Then at the end of the programme they pick a book* and a ‘luxury object’, meaning something that won’t help them escape or communicate with the outside world but will improve their stay on the island.

My 11 most despised ever Desert Island Discs ‘luxury object’ picks:

Gok Wan – lip balm
What a spluttering gasm of fool. Mind you, the number of fashion and media thickies who’ve picked one or other named brand of beauty product makes me want to throw up.

Anthony Julius – San Pellegrino water on tap
Because a familiar tasting brand of springwater is just that tiny bit nicer than, say, completely new water such as an actual spring. Or learning to de-salinate.

Piers Morgan – a cricket bat
No ball or stumps, nobody else there to bowl to him, just a cricket bat. Perhaps he’ll roger himself with it. Several other people have taken complete cricket sets but they’re usually smart enough to include a bowling machine.

Vince Cable and George Michael – an Aston Martin
Huh!? On an island with no roads? This isn’t Top Gear, are you just going to sit in it?

Ruthie Henshall – a jar of Mayonnaise
Aw Ruthie, you’re a genius. One jar. No fridge. Catching and cooking your own food. Two weeks later, driven insane wishing over and over again that you’d picked something less stupid.

Pen Hadow – a six inch nail
Almost impossibly brilliant. I have no idea why he wanted this, perhaps he just got bored doing the interview? No hammer, either.

Antonia Fraser – strings of false pearls
What an absolutely stunning fucking psychedelic numb-nut.

Paolo Coelho – a trip around the desert island on Concorde
And in one fell swoop, I travel from being completely disinterested in Paolo Coelho to wanting to stab him repeatedly in the face with a blunted, slightly rusty model of that aeroplane. He wants a flight on Concorde around a small desert island?

Jan Morris – a hot water bottle
It’s a desert island Jan, not Snowdonia.

Fred Hoyle – a big photo of a lot of people at a race meeting
I know it was a long, long time ago, the Internet hadn’t been invented and he’s a man from a different age. But this is just shit.

Sir Aaron Klug – a pile of mixed Greek and Imperial coins
Mind you, I don’t actually know who Sir Aaron Klug was, perhaps he made beautiful intricate steampunk statues entirely out of ancient coinage.

By the way, since I was trawling Desert Island Discs archives, here’s:

My 10 favourite Desert Island Discs luxury object art thefts

Dame Stephanie Shirley – Henry Moore’s Madonna and Child
Nice.

Mary Beard – The Elgin Marbles
Presumably to stop any chance of Greece ever getting them back.

Colin Pillinger – a picture of Clifton Suspension bridge
Almost made it into the top section it’s so daft, however I have to accept it’s a nice bridge.

Posy Simmonds – the Crown Jewels
Hahahaha. She’ll probably use them as dildos. Cornelia Parker gets an honorary mention at this point for somehow getting away with asking for a solar-powered vibrator. AND that was back when Sue Lawley did the interview.

Monty Don – Rembrandt’s Hendrickje Bathing
I really thought Monty Don would’ve picked something less aesthetic, more grubby and real.

Jack Vettriano – Francis Bacon’s Triptych May-June 1973
“Please sir, I *am* edgy”

Christopher Frayling – The V&A
Because one art theft just isn’t enough. What a greedy guts!

Christopher Ondaatje – Justin Deranyagala’s The Blue Nude
Classy

Bob Champion – a bronze statue of the racehorse Aldaniti
Again, nice.

Arthur Scargill – the Mona Lisa
I fail to understand why Scargill would pick not only a painting but such a boring shit one, surrounded by minging tourists.

Ps. I found three particularly sad ones:
David Walliams – gun to shoot himself
Nigella Lawson – liquid tamezepan, to give her the possibility of a ‘pleasant exit’
Stephen Fry – a suicide pill

*as well as the book of their choice, they’re given The Complete Works Of Shakespeare and The Bible, or occasionally an alternative religious book of their choosing. Although several guests have picked Darwin or Dawkins as their book choice, so far nobody has tried to argue that they should get this *instead* of the religious book and still get another book.