I just want to take a moment and mention our show, this coming Saturday. It’s a one-off special for the festive season, when Judy and I will be presenting what we like to think of as our ‘gift guide’ to the best Christmas books.We’ve put all our favourites into four categories which include celebrity autobiographies, stocking fillers, coffee table books and cookery books. Even better, in the studio we’ll have Ronnie Wood, Sharon Osbourne, Russell Brand and Helen Mirren who'll be choosing which of our nominations make it to the final selection.
I'm really quite excited since neither Judy nor I know which books our guests have selected. I’ve already filmed the segments for all my choices but you’ll have to tune in to see which of the following our panel chose for the final end of year book list.
Richard's List of His Best Christmas Books 2007
Bill Oddie’s Little Black Bird Book by Bill Oddie
Gonzo by Hunter S. Thompson
The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry
Erewhon by Samuel Butler
The English by Jeremy Paxman
Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years 1969-1979 by Michael Palin
House of Meetings by Martin Amis
And It's Goodnight from Him ...: The Autobiography of the Two Ronnies by Ronnie Corbett
Life at Blandings by P.G. Wodehouse
Beyond Good and Evil by by Friedrich Nietzsche
10 comments:
Nothing by Germaine Greer or her sister Dame Edna? I also notice that you seem to be related to all these authors. I had heard of things like this, where you writers all review or recommend each others books, but this is naked nepotism. I expect you sort it out between yourselves down the Grouch Club don't you?
How dare you suggest that I only list books by Palin, Fry, Paxman, Oddie, and Friedrich Nietzsche because I'm close friends with them! I haven't seen Nietzsche in years. In fact, he doesn't even send me a Christmas card. So, you can see, your allegations are not backed up by the facts.
Nietzsche does not 'do Christmas' as he believes that 'God is dead' - really I wish you would take the trouble to study some of these philosophers a little more closely...
And now you insist on bringing religion into Christmas. Have you no shame? Don't you know that this is the best time of year to sell our products?
Richard's List of His Best Christmas Books 2007
I’ve examined it in some detail. The English. By Jeremy Paxman?? Pardon the invective, Pal, but that’s bananas. As I said to Elberry, barely an hour ago, my life is cluttered with the debris of incessant disappointments. Nor have I read the blessed thing, so I won't offer an erudite and incisive review of what I cannot know. But the man’s insufferable. What I would recommend in its place, though, is AA Gill’s The Angry Island. Which is something like Horace's Odi profanum vulgus - "I hate the lowly people." Published by Orion in 2005, I bear the terrible sorrow of reading it incessantly (you see, I love the buggers). That notwithstanding, I have seldom seen such a combination of astonishing and convincing arguments, or so much brilliance combined with so much insight. And I would urge you to attach some considerable importance to a sentiment which is lodged deeply in my psyche and inseparable from the future of our personal relationship.
On the other hand, you are too precious to me to contemplate losing you in this way. What is to become of me in my spiritual solitude? So I repossess you. I also ought thank you for your Christmas Card. Is that tie the one you wore in jail? I understand you spend a grand total of twelve hours for arson, breaking and entering, selling stolen goods and trying too storm the Café de Paris at the head of a gang of vivisectionists. Apart of course, from poking Judy with your toe. I trust you managed to learn how to assemble an AK 47 during that time, or to snort coke without getting caught!?
Suffice it to say that Channel Four is not amused. As they probably reminded you, you may have to defray the future from the proceeds of your memorabilia sales.
So hang on to that tie Richard...
Selena,
Your comment fills me with great disquiet. I’m worried why you mentioned this character called Elberry. It makes me wonder if I’m not part of some great hoax I can’t yet appreciate. Only the other day, ‘Elberry’ emailed me to ask me if I’m you. I told him that I’m not. He then told me that he suspects that you are really Bryan, only for him to then email me back to say that Bryan’s reply is that he thinks that you are really Big Chip Dale. That I doubt because I know that Chip’s currently suffering from a deflated thong and he’s in no mood for games.
It leaves me, fresh from prison, fraught with worry lest you think I am Elberry, or Elberry is me, or even that I am a she and not even a he. I can only say, with absolute certainty, that I am a Richard and neither Bryan nor Elberry. Were it not for the fact that I appreciate your privacy, I would have hired detectives and we’d have solve this riddle long ago. I might then get down to editing down my Prison Diaries from the unpublishable three million words currently sitting written on rolls of toilet paper.
It’s not idle boast when I say that I’m sure that you would approve of them. I’ve a stunning chapter on the events leading to my time in solitary. I cover the incident in the exercise yard involving a shiv fashioned from an empty tapioca tin and my failed attempt to smuggle myself out of jail dressed as the Archbishop of York.
As to Gill’s book. Without question, I’ll rush out early tomorrow morning and purchase it. Should I forward the receipt to your accountant as per our usual arrangement? My salary from Channel 4 has still not come through, which is making Christmas hard this year.
You’re so right about the ‘Lesser Jeremy’ (Clarkson, of course, being the ‘greater’). To tell you the truth, I’ve not actually read the blasted thing. This was all a rather transparent attempt at ingratiating myself with the man before he comes around on Christmas Day. If I could encourage a few people to buy his book, he might splash out on some decent wine for a change.
Only the other day, ‘Elberry’ emailed me to ask me if I’m you.
Elberry?
The man’s a menace. He sent me an email questioning my very nationality. The sheer audacity of it. And seeing that he’s just been doing a bit of ethnic cleansing on his own blog, I would simply like to say to you that I think each facet of my identity has been documented to the satisfaction of many an impartial judge. It’s what they call habeas corpus. Or “you shall have the body”. The trouble with that is, the last time I was before the judge he laid a hand on my corpus and made a very disgraceful suggestion.
“You have erred,” he said, “and ye shall pay.”
So I blew the man - which my court-appointed lawyer assures me could be turned into a credible plea for miscarriage of justice. With the result, that I am still at large (and even have a five-hundred Pound cheque coming) - though I’m sick and tired of ending up with a dick in my mouth, every time I leave the house. Ooops....
...just off to read your latest!
Dreamy
Selena, though I’m still not totally convinced that you’re not Elberry, I think you might have given yourself away. The veil has dropped from my eyes and I believe I can now see your real identity. You write those Black Lace erotic novels that I pass in bookshops with my eyes askance. I can’t begin to say what a huge disappointment it is. I had you figured as a pipe smoker, at least, and a noted man of letters.
Yet I suppose the clues have been there, if only I’d looked carefully enough. The way your parse your sentences leaves plenty of room for those ‘trembling lips’ and ‘heaving bosoms’. Am I right to think you also ghostwrite those celebrity novels that do so well among woman of a certain age at Christmas? If so, I hope Jordan paid you well to document the adventures of her breasts. Speaking only as a would-be writer, I can only imagine what it is to sell your talents to such a woman. Not that I haven’t applied to become a Black Lace author, myself, but they rejected my manuscript because I included Stephen Fry and Bill Oddie in every scene. Now, I’m quite happy that I was rejected. To tell you the truth, it’s all a bit vulgar for me. All these anatomical details make me feel quite unclean. The Richard & Judy Show has a reputation as teatime television free of sex, drugs, violence, and ethnic cleansing. I’m just here to give a blow by blow commentary of my daily life, though perhaps, in the circumstances, that isn’t the most appropriate choice of words.
To end, I would seriously advise you never to leave the house.
The veil has dropped from my eyes and I believe I can now see your real identity.
Richard, to put you out of your agony, I have in fact been described (and copyrighted) as “the type that looks perfectly at home in a late-night bar, but is naturally removed from the tedium of domestic life. The sort of female, in other words, all enlightened men dream about: sensual, sultry, seductive, enigmatic, loving, stimulating and yet, compassionate and undemanding. Not necessarily divine, but comparable.“
What else can I say but - smart blondes play dumb....!
Dreamy
Wicked funny!
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