Desert Island Brands - Richard Seymour

Leatherman. A complete toolkit in your pocket (if I have any pockets any more). With that, I can do just about anything I need... Failing that, Browning, as they have an extensive range of survival and hunting gear that looks cool and works well... yes, appearances are still important, even if there's no one around but me to appreciate it.

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... 'nuff said...

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?
Mercury. My beloved range cooker (which we also designed, by the way). I'd remember its self-igniting burners and super-stable roasting cavities as I incinerated dead animals on the campfire...

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?
Google Earth Community. I'd set up a new category called "HELP!" and make sure my exact position showed up on one of the top overlays in Google Earth. That way the millions of surfers who visit it every day would know I was there and come and rescue me! I'm a designer, get me the f**k out of here!

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?
Sunseeker... naturally. Fully crewed and gassed-up for the journey home across the Pacific. And inside it... Bombay Sapphire, Fallen Vodka and Spearmint Rhino...

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?
Charming the birds down from the trees... would sure beat trying to shoot the buggers...

Designer and desert island survival expert Adrian Whitefoord comments:
At last an island castaway who has chosen a proper knife. Swiss Army knives are all very well, but comparing one to a Leatherman is like comparing a paddle steamer with the Bismarck. Richard unlikely to be deemed a wimp by the local natives for employing Browning gear, but my advice is go for the top of the range Ti titanium Leatherman -- top quality blades and a pair of pliers for extracting thorns, splinters and poison darts.

Green & Black's is one of the fastest-growing confectionery brands in the UK and not without good reason. Melt some over the top of one of the island's fresh mangos (cut into thin slivers with a Leatherman) and one could easily be forgiven for forsaking dear old Blighty for good.

Once Richard got the hang of roasting small critters over marsh gas fires in the island's swamps, all memories of those wonderful Mercury ovens would be forever banished from his mind. The natives take this one stage further by sucking in a lungful of the potent vapour via a hollow bamboo tube, holding a lighted torch to the end and exhaling. The resulting flame both dispatches and cooks to perfection tree-bound mammals such as the unfortunate three-toed sloth. Just make sure you are not standing underneath, when the fiery fur ball descends from the heavens.

Richard seems very keen to get off the island via Google beacons or indeed a Sunseeker. I must admit I am a little surprised. I would have thought this the opportunity of a lifetime for him to rise to the unique low tech challenges that the island presents. Returning some years later to our shores, having designed a new propulsion system using marsh gas and a bladder full of the witch doctors finest grog. A combo potent enough to potentially facilitate man's first mission to the stars.

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