Desert Island Brands - Luke Taylor

Ocado seems the most sensible choice... good stuff straight to the shelter. Its  15 minute delivery time slots are useful when Island life gets especially hectic and I am juggling both the housework and my canoe construction responsibilities.

2. Last taste of civilisation
The island has a plentiful supply of nuts and fruit, not to mention a healthy population of fish, so you will have plenty to eat. But which one food brand are you really going to miss from your old life?
Green & Black's chocolate -- bad habits are especially meaningful during the faintly tedious rainy season...(a single slab of caramel chocolate can also be usefully bartered for a tasteful alpaca shawl).

3. Best reminder of home
Successful survivalists always claim that it is mental attitude which sees them through. Belief that you will get back home is going to be vital -- so which brand will sum up home best?
Channel 4... the perfect backdrop to the fine art of doing nothing.

4. Most welcome online brand
Eventually you manage to rig up your own connection to the internet using bits and pieces found on the beach but you have only one chance to log on to a website before it goes down -- which online brand will you choose?
Nothing beats trawling through five years of backed up email spam... will be straight onto both my Gmail and Hotmail accounts for this special therapy.

5. Ultimate luxury
Self indulgence is hard to come by on a desert island, so what brand would you be most excited to find washed up on the beach?
An inexhaustible supply of bone marrow and Poilane toast... if I am unable to rig up a toaster from the local beach debris then it would have to be a Cesna Citation light jet small enough to land on the beach and flash enough to wind up the natives.

6. Transferable skills
You already work in the jungle of marketing so there are probably skills which you have acquired through your job which will come in handy -- or you may have other hidden talents. Which of your personal skills will help you to get to grips with life on a desert island?
I'd like to think it was my capacity for indolence. The instinct to do not much is especially useful in a situation where there is virtually nothing to do.

Designer and desert island survival expert Adrian Whitefoord comments:
Ocado - the home delivery service behind the Waitrose food brand is a great choice. Good food, and perhaps more importantly great wine and spirits, reliably delivered straight to the shelter. I can just see it now. A nice bottle of Chateau Laroque, St Emilion Grand Cru for those chillier evenings beside a blazing fire on the beach, and then a nice white wine to go with some Hagi Sushi with tuna, salmon, and king prawn relaxing in the shade beneath the palms. Then of course there's all the practical stuff that you can get delivered like suntan lotion, firelighters, razors. If Luke plays his cards right there's plenty of stuff available to barter and he might get something more interesting than a shawl too. 

Green & Black's chocolate, another good one. I always remember 1991 as a good year for chocolate. It was when Craig Sams, founder of Whole Earth -- the organic food company, and his wife, Times columnist and confirmed chocoholic, Josephine Fairley, made the world's first organic chocolate. It was high-quality, bittersweet and packed with 70% cocoa solids -- enough to make chocolate fans sit up and take notice. And I guess it's also right that Luke should be craving for this in a hot climate as the whole Green & Black's thing kicked off when the duo were on holiday in Belize and drank a local drink flavoured with cocoa beans and spices made by Mayan farmers. However, he may be seriously disappointed to know that the local tribe don't have something similar up their sleeves.

I love doing nothing too. And Channel 4 does provide the perfect backdrop. I always tune into 'The Simpsons' when I can and I always enjoy a good scoff at Big Brother. But basically C4 more than any other channel serves the invaluable purpose of allowing me to do, well, nothing at all. Doing a little bit of "nothing" every day can, over time, change the texture of your life. It has also been proven by doctors to have positive benefits such as lowering blood pressure. So, if anybody challenges me on why I'm slumped on the sofa in my shed I always say it's good for my health!

I've been a Google fan for years and so it's hardly a surprise that I'd like to have a Gmail account - with 2.5 gigabytes of storage you don't have to throw anything away which is a real luxury if you are used to Hotmail. But sadly this is only for the chosen few at the moment so Luke must be a made man in internet circles.

The merit of the Poilane Company (started in Paris in 1932) is that it has been able to preserve old techniques of bread making. Baked in wood fired ovens that give the crust of the bread a subtle flavour that no other bread has these days. Ideally, I would personally choose to have the "colis dégustation" dropped in by parachute 2-3 times a week. This is an assortment of Poilane's specialities made up of a rye loaf, a currant raisin bread, and two walnut loaves. The marrow bone sounds a bit dodgy though I'd be terrified of the CJD myself and probably stick to Marmite.

Yup indolence has got a lot to be said for it. But I have a sneaking suspicion that life will not be all lotus eating for Luke. Somewhere along the line there will be some really hard work to be done. He touches on boat building and that's an activity that definitely is a rolled up shirtsleeves sort of thing. Not many indolent people escape from a desert island - but on the other hand when all that grub from Ocado and the marrow bone kicks in it would slow down even the most industrious amongst us.

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