You can still have a pole on the controls at an approprate moment.
But.....
Your friend would be very silly if he let you handle the aircraft for either departure or arrival.
If anything went wrong he would be hung out to dry.
Unfortunately there seems to be a dumbing down of pretty basic airlaw across the industry in the UK. To be honest the level of knowledge of your average instructor is getting that poor or they have so much word of mouth bollocks which is wrong I am not suprised a normal license holder hasn't got a clue whats going on.
At least you got some intellegent answers if a bit one liners before some fud came in and said you could log it as PICUS or co-pilot or some other such bollocks