A Nun's Thighs

That dear man, Ronnie Corbett, arrived today with a flask of Mrs. Corbett’s home make chicken broth. I was in my dressing down with my ear and elbow close to a roaring fireplace when Judy showed him into my study. Even in my much weakened condition, I was happy to see him. He had clearly gone out of his way to visit me, despite his walnut wounds.

We spent a pleasant hour talking together. I told him that his limp seemed to have almost gone and he praised me for my pallor which he said was ‘as pale as a nun’s thigh’.

Yet the truth is that I’m feeling no better. The cold had progressed from the feverish stage and loaded my head to its muzzle with chemical weapon’s grade bacteria. There’s an odd feature of my flues and colds. I fear worse when my body is clearing its system than when I’m under the influence of some unfriendly virus. You might compare it to the condition in Iraq.

Anyway, I’m hoping to be back to normal tomorrow or Wednesday at the latest. I have great plans for the New Year, including the campaign I’m going to start against the cult of the celebrity novel. Casting an eye over the January book sales at Amazon, I was pleasantly amused to see all the usual Christmas celebrity biographies are now half price and Russell Brand’s annoyingly titled ‘Booky Wooky’ (not necessarily the right title but I'm too sick to go look) is working its way towards a good pulping. Less amusing was the number of novels written by celebrities I noticed. Even our own Denise Robertson has spawned a couple of these potboilers. Something really needs to be done and I think I’m the man to do it. Judy has said to me on many an occasion that she intends to ‘become a writer’ once she finishes on TV. I try to tell her that writers are born and don’t suddenly ‘fancy having a go’ once the TV work dries up. However, on this, as in many things, we are bound to have differences.

Okay, I can feel my anger begin to rise and if I don’t stop now I won’t stop at all. I’ve already written more than I intended and I’m feeling weaker for it.

Until tomorrow when normal services should resume, I hope you all have a wonderful time tonight. Personally, I don’t treat it as being particularly special. It’s the most miserable night of the year when we all look back on opportunities not taken, disappointments accrued, and the world situation going from bad to worse. I’d be more than happy to celebrate New Year if we could take 2007 out behind the garden shed and smack it ceremonially around the head with a spade. Because we can’t, I don’t. Nevertheless, I wish you all a happy New Year.

The Man Who Was Sunday

I’m heavy with a cold and in no mood or fit state to write. I’m about to climb back into bed and finish G.K. Chesterton's ‘The Man Who Was Thursday’. For contractual reasons to do with the Richard&Judy Book Club, I can’t recommend that you read it. It’s not about middle-aged women experiencing life-changing events on holiday in Spain, or office romances set in Luton. Nor is it the heart warming tale of the survivor of an explosion at the country’s largest kipper factory. In fact, it’s not the sort of thing that would get into our book club, it being a silly little tale about anarchy and order, written in prose that shines like polished silver. I’m reading it very slowly so I can savour every moment of its brilliance. I certainly don’t recommend that you rush out and buy yourself a copy.

Avec Richard Parker et Judy Barrow

Judy arrived home this evening with some exciting news, sure to feature widely in the morning newspapers. She caught me out of bed, standing shivering in the kitchen as I mixed myself a Lemsip.

The ‘bug’ had struck me around six o’clock but, by ten, what had begun as a mild headache and gathering thickness in the throat has come roaring into life as a full blown malady. Some might call it a cold but I personally think it much more than that. The Word Health Organisation needed to be informed in order to set up a quarantine. For that reason alone, I ask you not to get too close.

‘I’m been talking with Mark,’ said Judy, dumping her handbag on the work surface and quite obvious to my fever.

‘Mark,’ asked I, in a whisper. ‘Which Mark is this?’

‘Mark Ronson. The music producer.’

‘Ah,’ I replied, testing the Lemsip with my elbow and deciding that it was hot enough to drink while being cool enough to avoid a trip to A&E.

‘We’re going to record a song.’

I gave her one of my hard stares, at once doleful and cynical yet with an undercurrent of the mildly delirious. ‘A song?’ I repeated. ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Judy, but there’s a sick man standing in your kitchen. Beneath this dressing gown is a body wracked by fever. Don’t you notice my pallid colour and general lethargy?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with you but a slight sniffle,’ said Judy, ever the humanitarian. ‘Don’t you want to hear the good news?’

‘Okay,’ I wheezed. ‘What’s the song?’

‘Not just any song,’ said Judy. ‘It’s one of your favourites. I’ll give you a clue. It’s French.’

‘Not “La Vie En Rose” by Grace Jones? Some say it’s a camp classic but it always gets my testicles swinging.’

‘Close,’ she clapped. ‘It’s actually "Bonnie and Clyde". You know... By Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot?’

Shocked? I dropped my spoon in the Lemsip.

‘That’s wonderful,’ I said. ‘How on earth did you come up with an idea so brilliant?’

‘Oh,’ blushed Judy. ‘I knew we needed a bit of money so I thought we might cover the next few months by getting a single to the top of the charts.’

‘Ah, but not any song,’ I said, already shuffling my feet to the tune I knew so well. ‘My favourite song.’

The truth is that there’s a story to all this. Way back when I was a young man, Serge Gainsbourg was my idol. I modelled myself on his stick thin look. What people now think of as my creepiness and slight resemblance to a reptile is just a deliberate attempt to copy the French maestro. When I was old enough to afford to travel, I actually went to Paris and hung out with the great man. Though I spoke little French, we seemed to share an understanding that went beyond language. It was the universal language of the misunderstood genius. In a way, you might say that Serge was to me then what Fry is to me now.

I picked up my Lemsip and knocked it back in one go.

‘Steady there, champ,’ said Judy as it dribbled from my chin.

‘I need to get well,’ I said, staggering towards the door on my way back to bed. ‘I’ve suddenly got a reason to live.’

‘I’m glad your happy,’ said Judy, taking my arm and helping me to the stairs. ‘Mark’s very excited about the project.’

‘It’s bound to be a hit,’ I said. ‘He’s a great producer.’

‘The best in the business,’ she answered. ‘I think it takes a special kind of genius to come up with a twist so novel.’

‘Twist?’ I asked.

‘Oh, didn’t I mention?’ said Judy, as I we made the landing. ‘I’ll be playing Clyde and you’re playing Bonnie.’ She paused and took a step back. 'Oh dear, you do look bad, Richard. Should I call a doctor?'

'Just call me Brigitte,' I said, feeling nausea overwhelm me.

Best of the Web

After I had unnaturally manipulated the fates by spilling a chicken’s innards over a prostrate Anne Diamond, The Guardian was forced to unwittingly choose my piece on ‘The Trouble With Dames’ as one of its ‘best of the blogs’ items for today. It accounts for all the new visitors and a disturbing rise in the number of people who want me to stop blogging.

Ten percent Thirteen percent Sixteen percent of my visitors now seem to think that The Richard Madeley Appreciation Society is a bad thing. I’m astonished by this figure almost as much as I’m astounded that not one of you have asked me to write more of my award-winning poetry. It’s as though my ‘Mock Heroic Epistle to Jeremy Paxman on the State of His Sock Drawer’ doesn’t exist. All I can say is that you won’t get another if you ignore my poetic genius in this callous way. Stephen Fry need only rhyme ‘chesty wheeze’ with ‘striptease’ and he’s in line to become the next poet laureate. And the less I say about Pam Ayres the better. Do we really need another comic poem about a painful pimple on a dairymaid’s buttocks? I think not.

Taken as an indication of the British public’s tastes, I think ten percent thirteen percent sixteen percent is a rather worrying figure. Would they prefer it if I wrote about politics or sport? Do they want more details about my daily life, what kind of cheese I prefer, and which of my relatives is suffering from a prolapsed elbow? What, in other words, am I doing wrong?

Carrion Comfort

I’ve had a dizzying twenty four hours and hardly enough time to write about it. There are moments like this when the impetus to write is at its lowest. I'm talking, of course, about those moments when ‘the Real World’ puts its considerable weight against your door and forces its way inside.

The Madeley attitude towards the Real World is a rather naive one: I try to avoid it whenever I can. A frigid shoulder is the best the Real World can expect from me. Yet yesterday it had me cornered and I could tell by the look of malicious intent in its eye that I would be lucky to get away without serious damage to my ego. Where it bit me, I prefer not to say. That it bit me at all is enough for you to know.

As you’re no doubt aware, the imminent arrival of 2008 has had me feeling deeply anxious about my future. It came to a head around midnight on Christmas Day. I was sitting at the bottom of the garden, a bottle of whisky on one knee and a garden gnome on the other. As I emptied one, I confessed my problems to the other. Neither offered much of a solution. Yet my sobbing must have carried up to the house because not long after I’d emptied the bottle, a figure of hope came looming over my shoulder.

‘Don’t let Cilla get you down,’ said Fry. ‘She doesn’t mean anything by it. How was she to know you’re a quarter Russian?’

‘It’s not that,’ I said, wiping a tear from my cheek.

‘Then why the tears and the need for a gnome?’

‘I’m broke,’ I confessed. ‘I need to find work or all this will come to an end.’

‘Ah,’ said Stephen, sitting at my side. He took the gnome from my knee and threw it into the shrubbery. ‘There is no need to confer with the little people when Fry’s around. If you need money, then you only need to find some work. Take me as your model. I’m always running low on funds but there’s work out there for men of reasonable intellects.’ The sight of a smile of my lips confused Stephen into thinking I was happy again. He slapped my knee and stood up. ‘Now come on back into the house,’ he said. ‘If we don’t stop Cilla’s 60s medley, she’ll start into the hits of the 70s and I can’t be sure that Titchmarsh won’t snap in a most violent manner.’

How that I wished it were all so simple!

With the Channel 4 contract running out in the Summer, I’ve become preoccupied with my finances. Now, no doubt you are sitting there, wrapped in the warmth of your semi-detached in some lovely London grotto, quaffing quality brandy while a large wolf hound sleeps by an extravagant fireplace. You think to yourself: what is Madeley blathering on about? Surely the £500,000 advance for his biography was enough for him. And what about the millions he has earned during his stint at ITV and Channel 4? You might even wonder about the ‘You Say, We Pay’ monies. Where are they now, you might uncharitably ask?

Well it’s nearly 2008 and that means it is time for brutal honesty. The Madeley funds are low. Lower than low. Were I an office cleaner, tethered to a vacuum for £5.50 an hour, I might consider myself comfortably off. It has got to the point where I need to act or prepare for a life wrapped in cardboard and selling matchbooks. Even blogging is becoming a luxury I’ll be unable to indulge for much longer. That’s why I spent yesterday making a full inventory of my skills and why I intend to make use of them in the near future.

I scribbled down the list yesterday morning. After half an hour’s consideration, I had the following laid neatly out on the back of one of the Tesco shopping receipts I so assiduously keep on me.

Full Name: Richard Caesar Madeley

Sex: Alpha Male

Occupation: Talk Show Host

Qualifications: Honorary doctorates from five universities, plus ‘O’ levels in carpentry and English.

Skills: listening, interrupting, pontificating, writing (questionable), loyalty, intelligence, computer literacy, expert on every conceivable subject, established contacts in light entertainment.

With my curriculum vitae complete, I folded it up and stuffed it down my sock. Half an hour later, I was in a nearby metropolis and had found myself an employment agency.

‘Hello,’ I said to a lively twinset sitting at a desk by the door. ‘I’m looking for work.’

The woman gazed up at me and within the space of the word ‘blink’ she was screaming my name.

‘Richard Madeley! Oh my God! It’s you, isn’t it? It’s really you!’

‘Guilty as charged,’ I said, ‘though I was let off on appeal… Irresistible sex appeal.’

‘Oh my god! What are you doing here?’

I put my foot on her desk and rolled down my sock to show her my makeshift C.V. Then I gestured to my surroundings, the green office furniture, the walls covered with small cards briefly describing employment opportunities. ‘I’m here seeking work,’ I said.

‘Oh, come on!’ she laughed. ‘Don’t fool with me. What are you really here for? Is it a show?’

‘No, no,’ I replied. ‘I’m really here for work. Or, at least, I’m here to see what kind of job a man of my vast experience and skills can land.’

‘You’re really here for a job?’ she asked, looking not a little disappointed. ‘Well what kind of position are you after?’

‘Ideally it would be something in presenting a national teatime chat show, perhaps on a generous contract of a few million a year. But if you don’t have that, I thought something in an office…’ I held out my details. ‘I’ve written down all my skills if that’s any help.’

She took one look at my résumé and, after making a comment about the price I pay for peas, turned it over. She seems quite impressed as she cast an eye down my qualifications on the back. She then picked up at a card she had been in the process of filling out.

‘To be perfectly honest with your Richard, with this limited skill set we’d be looking to place you in a role such as a General Catering Assistant.’

‘And what does that entail?’ I asked.

‘Can you ladle dumplings?’

‘I see,’ I replied, not immediately attracted to the work. ‘And is that it?’

‘We do have an opening for a Community Care Worker. You would get to meet a wide range of interesting people.’

‘Define “interesting”,’ I said.

‘Newly released prisoners and people with some kind of social disfunction. It’s basically work with the violent and the criminally insane.’

‘A bit too close to dealing with bloggers,’ I replied.

‘What about a Human Resources Officer working with Information Systems?’

‘Ah ! An executive job. That sounds more promising. Are there any more details?’

‘Full training will be given on site,’ she said, ‘though you might have to double for the usherette on a busy night.’

‘You mean I’d be selling tickets in a cinema?’

‘That’s what I said,’ said the woman. ‘Human Resources Officer working with Information Systems.’

‘And is that all I’m good for?’ I asked, falling back onto a chair, amazed at what I had heard. ‘Does an honorary doctorate not account for anything these days?’

‘Almost as little as a real one, I’m afraid,’ said the woman.

There really was nothing more I could say. I told her that I’d consider the job working with ex-convicts and made my way home. I got back at three to find Stephen Fry lazing in my arm chair. He was smoking his pipe.

‘Ah, the Dick of the house is now in residence,’ he said as he closed my copy of ‘Private Eye’. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I settled myself with a humourous read while I waited. Unfortunately, I’d already read that particular volume of Wodehouse and was forced to pick up the “Eye” instead. There was a joke on page seven that almost made me smile. Then I realised it was merely an errant staple.’

‘Judy not home?’ I asked as I threw down my car keys on the table.

‘She had go out early to beat the London traffic. I understand that it’s bingo night at Denise Robertson’s.’

I kicked off my shoes and made like the last English Oak and collapsed onto the sofa. Given the angle between my head and Stephen’s chair, it felt like I was about to undergo a session with my shrink. As it turns out, that’s not far from the truth.

‘Oh, Stephen,’ I began. ‘Why is it so easy for you? How did you become such a polymath? You only need to say that you’re going to do a thing and you cause it to happen. You want to publish a novel, the publisher says how much do you want as an advance. You say you’re writing a book on writing poetry and they make ready to print a hundred thousand copies.’

‘Do I sense jealousy, Richard?’ asked the Great Fry.

‘Only admiration,’ I said. ‘I’m tired of being typecast as the handsome yet knowledgeable irritant. I want the next stage of my career to bring me moderate rewards for all the work I do. Is it too much to ask that I’ll not be consigned to spending my days writing invoices and inputting data into a computer? I want to carry on writing, Stephen, but the world simply won’t allow it. Have I deluded myself into thinking that I have a talent for this work? Are those people right who vote for me to give up blogging? Should I accept my lot in life and succumb to the routine of a telesales office?’

‘You must succumb,’ said Stephen. ‘There are very few of us who can make a living by being witty. You are no different to the thousands who try and fail.’

‘You really think I’m no different?’

‘No different except you are perhaps a little more determined, rather stubborn, and have a higher tolerance for pain. Otherwise you’re born to fail.’

‘So that’s it then? ’

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Stephen as he puffed away at his briar. ‘A man must know his limitations and you do have such woefully limited limitations, Richard.’

I exhaled a sigh that would have been enough to extinguish the world’s light.

‘Oh, come, come, Richard,’ cried Stephen in reply. ‘Don’t look on this as the end of your writing career. See it at the beginning of a career in telesales! And who knows? In a year’s time, perhaps you’ll be the most famous telesales person in the country. People will be talking about your telephone manner from Wick to Cornwall, from Bright to Aberdeen.’

I sat up and gazed on his magnificence. ‘My God, I do believe that you’re right,’ I said. ‘I will do this and I will be a success. I’m going into telesales. If I can’t talk to the nation each night at five o’clock, I’ll ring them individually at inconvenient times of the day. It’s about time people stopped thinking of Richard Madeley as a man who lives only to annoy them.’

The Trouble With Dames

‘That bloody Michael Parkinson is going to spoil this for all of us,’ I declared to Judy soon after I’d powered up my old laptop this morning. I tapped the screen where that ungrateful Yorkshire prig was staring out at me as though I’d just asked to hear, yet again, about the time he met Muhammad Ali. ‘Look here. It says that he’s going to be knighted in the New Year honours! I bet his publicist leaked that to the Press. No doubt about it, the damn heel… And after all we’ve done for him.’

A wan hand appeared from under the duvet. It recoiled from the light before whispering. ‘Richard, could you please be a little quieter when you curse Parky? It sounds too much like blasphemy.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re going to defend him!’ I snapped.

‘He is the nation’s favourite talk show host.’

That was low, illegal blow, especially on Boxing Day. ‘The last time Parky asked a penetrating question it was 1973.’ I said. ‘And even then he questioned Lee Marvin about his sexuality.’

‘Oh Richard, give it a rest,’ said the hand. ‘Or at least lower your voice.’

‘I can’t give it a rest,’ I answered. ‘And you know I don’t have any sympathy with hangovers. If you can’t hold your liquor, you shouldn’t drink so much.’ I turned my attention back to the news. ‘If Parky spoils this for us, I’ll never forgive him.’

The instructions from The Palace had been quite explicit: don’t respond when asked about Her Majesty’s New Year honours. It wasn’t my own knighthood that concerned me as much as knowing that Judy has become really attached to the idea of becoming a dame. The weeks of excitement had pretty much been centred on Judy’s outfit for the day. I think my own elevation to the knighthood had passed without even a single mention.

I closed the laptop and slipped from the bed. The hand retreated under the sheets, no doubt rejoining the rest of Dame Judy who had over-exerted her liver at the previous night’s party. Things had been going well until Stephen Fry began supping champagne from Selena Dreamy’s shoe. Judy shouted that had to try it herself and kicked off a slipper. The poor woman was now suffering, not because she’d miscalculated the potency of the drink but the size of her own feet. It stands to sense that it one can get a touch tipsy by supping from Selena’s small pumps then you can get totally bashed by drinking from Judy’s size elevens.

I pulled on my dressing gown and quietly headed for my office, having decided make my phone calls from there and allow Judy chance to sleep off her bad head.

One soon learns about one’s friends when the Press are sniffing about and it’s important to remind some about their loyalty. The man I was about to call is well known for being unable to keep a secret and it was important that I got to him before the newspapers.

I dialled, I sat, I waited as his phone rang, all the time staring at my unfinished Airfix model of Crown Prince Willem Hendrik and wondered if I’d ever find time to finish making the complete Great Dutch Potentates Collection. Eventually, somebody picked up the phone.

‘Jeremy?’ I said, loud and cheerful. ‘It’s Dick. How you feeling?’

The phone groaned. I knew it wouldn’t be the last time I’d hear that this week but Clarkson had more reason than many to be tender between the ears. He’d got himself in a drinking game with Sue Lawley and lost consciousness on the eleventh round. The last I saw of him was when A.A. Gill dragged him by his ankles, out to their waiting taxi.

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I don’t like bothering you on Boxing Day but I just wanted to give you a warning. Looks like the Press are out to discover the contents of the Queen’s Birthday Honours. If they contact you, please don’t mention our names. It’s meant to be a secret.’

‘Yes, yes, sure,’ muttered Clarkson. ‘What time is it?’

‘Nine thirty,’ I said with a crisp alertness.

I heard a head impact on a pillow. ‘Oh! You bast…’ began Clarkson before the phone went dead.

Need you any more proof that the man’s a wit and wag from morning till night? I think not.

I dialled the next number on my shot list of those ‘in the know’.

‘’Tis I, Fry, whispering on my iPhone,’ said The Great Man.

‘Morning Stephen. Feeling a bit peaky, are we?’

‘To paraphrase the Bard, my revels now are ended and I have foresworn all spirits that have melted my brain into air, into thin, thin air…’

‘Yes, well,’ I replied, ‘if you insist on drinking like that with The Merry Wives and Windsor, then your hangover is “As You Like It”.’

‘Very droll,’ muttered Stephen. ‘But how was I to know that Mrs. Madeley and Mrs. Titchmarsh could handle their liquor as well as Barbara Windsor?’

‘I’m sure it’s a hard lesson learned, Stephen,’ I answered, ‘but I’m sure you’ll recover your elan in no time. However, that’s not why I’m ringing. I just wanted to warn you against mentioning our names if anybody asks you about the New Year Honours. It’s supposed to be a secret.’

‘You should know that I’m the model of discretion,’ said Fry. ‘Fortunately, I’m currently also a model of forgetfulness. That was quite a party, or at least what little I can remember of it. Perhaps you can you shed some light on why I can taste shoe leather and anti-fungal cream?’

I did just that. He seemed less than amused. I then asked him if it was true about him buying Weasel Vomit coffee for Prince Charles.

For some reason, the question brought out conversation to a premature end. He had to dash off to the bathroom, leaving me with no other alternative than to ring the final person who knows about my impending knighthood.

‘Morning Bill,’ I said to Oddie. ‘Hope I didn’t wake you?’

‘Wake me?’ laughed Bill. ‘I’ve not been to bed. Nature doesn’t rest for Christmas. I’ve been out watching hibernating moles.’

‘That doesn’t sound exciting,’ I replied.

‘To be honest, Dick, it’s not the most fun you can do at four AM on a freezing cold December morning. However, you learn a lot about yourself watching a mole sleep.’

‘I’m sure you do,’ I replied, though not at all sure that I believe a word of it. ‘I’m just surprised you’re not feeling a bit bloated in the gills this morning. You were putting the drink away as well as anybody.’

‘Oh, I feel fine,’ said Bill. ‘But that’s probably because I’m immune to whisky. Ever since I was bitten by a raccoon, alcohol doesn’t affect me. I might as well have been drinking tea.’

‘Well it would have been a bit cheaper if you had,’ I replied, sourly. ‘Listen, I’m ringing to make sure you’ve retained your ability to keep a secret. The Press are nosing around for hints to the Queen’s New Year honours. I want you to remember that nobody is meant to know about Judy and me.’

‘I’m keeping it under my hat with my pet dormouse,’ said Bill.

I believed that he would.

I listened to Bill go on about moles for five more minutes before I hung up the phone and came out of the office to find Judy creeping slowly down the stairs. It looked like she was heading for the kitchen so I moved ahead of her to get the door open.

‘Did I hear you on the phone?’ she asked as she shuffled past me.

‘I was ringing Bill to remind his to keep the New Year honours a secret. He’s a wonderful man but prone to blurting things out that he shouldn’t. Wouldn’t want to jeopardise our honours because of a slip of his wayward tongue.’

‘Our honours?’ asked Judy, stopping by the sink and looking a bit puzzled.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You know… The letter from Buckingham Palace…’

‘Oh, I remember the letter,’ said Judy. ‘I just didn’t remember your name being on it.’

‘Well, it was addressed to me,’ I said, amazed at how the drink was affecting my poor wife’s faculties.

‘It was addressed to Mrs. Richard Madeley,’ said Judy. ‘And it was about my DBE. There was no mention of a KBE.’

I sank down onto the wicker stool as Judy stumbled to the cupboard and took out the jar of salts. After she’d downed a pint of the stuff in a single go, she turned to me and belched gently. ‘You didn’t think they’d knight you after all the things you’ve said and done? I’ve warned you before, Richard. You should do more charity work.’

‘And what about all my work writing my blog if it’s not charity?’ I asked. ‘If it weren’t for me, there would be thousands of people going through life without the hope I give them. My regular readers would soon go off the rails if they didn’t have me.’

She waved down my complaint as shuffled away on her way back to bed.

‘Sir Richard Madeley,’ I heard her laugh before the bedroom door closed. I sat in the kitchen, listening to the echo of her laughter dance around the house, beating its merry step on all my hopes for the New Year.

The Denim Effect

‘Well?’ asked Judy, as I sat, sofa bound, my gift unwrapped on my lap. ‘What do you think?’

‘It’s wonderful,’ I lied. ‘It’s… just… what… I… wanted.’

Her spirit seemed to ebb back into her chair, as though her world were now somehow complete.

‘I’m so glad,’ she sighed. ‘You’re so hard to buy for, Richard. I just didn’t know what to get you. But then I remembered you mentioning that you were running low on aftershave. Denise recommended this. She says it’s the best.’

‘I’m sure she did,’ I replied, wondering what kind of recommendation that is for a man's aftershave. Not that I’d ever doubt Denise’s opinion about anything but I wondered what on earth she could be razoring that required an astringent with such muscle.

‘You have run out, haven’t you?’ asked Judy.

‘I have,’ I smiled and it was true. My bottle of Lynx Unlimited Vitalising Aftershave had run dry days ago. Since Christmas Eve, I’ve been rubbing fumes onto my face, wondering if my body would revert back to its natural masculine odours of cordite and cigar smoke. Yet none of this helped me overcome the shock of my gift.

I must have sat too long in silence, my fingers squeezing the life out of the neck of my new 100ml bottle of Denim Original. It lay in the middle of a floret of red wrapping paper that appeared to have exploded from my groin, as though I’d just given birth to a monster. In a way, that’s exactly what I had done.

‘What’s wrong? You’re not going to smell it?’

I glanced down at the unwieldy bottle embossed with a large gold medallion.

‘Do I have to?’ I asked, which wasn’t so much the ‘wrong thing to say’ as scribbling my Tony Hancock on my own death warrant.

Judy was erect in her seat, disappointment elbowing for attention on her face, already occupied by a Christmas bumper bundle of anguish. ‘Oh Richard! Don’t tell me you don’t like it!’

‘No, no, not at all,’ I said but made no move to open the bottle.

‘Richard Madeley, you are the most ungrateful man I think I’ve ever known!’

An ache in my joints told me to expect rain or tears. Neither are good for me. I panicked and unscrewed the cap. Women called Pandora have opened boxes in a similar fashion and with lesser consequences. My mind’s eye played out typhoons in the Sahara and tidal waves hitting Mogadishu. The devastation in my own living room was biblical. Not even cosy New Testament biblical. I mean Old Testament right hook from Henry Cooper dressed as Moses biblical.

The scent sent me back back in the 1970s of my youth: a denim shirt tucked into white flares, my tall afro combed to a sixty degree angle as it bounced to the sound of the Pointer Sisters.

The vision passed and I was left back staring at the picture on the box. Only Jeremy Clarkson still wears denim shirts and all that was missing was a female hand stretching in from the side of the picture to unbutton one of the shirt’s press studs. I could only think hairy chests and Burt Reynolds.

‘Well?’ prompted Judy, waiting for me to insert the bottle up my nose.

I raised the bottle and sniffed.

The coma was involuntary.

When I awoke, years might have passed but it might have only been seconds.

‘Like it?’ she asked. ‘Read the back of the box. It says it’s for the man who doesn’t have to try too hard.’

‘Or the man who doesn’t bother trying at all,’ I wheezed as I tried to clear my nostrils of a smell that reminded me of a blaze at a tyre warehouse I’d once covered for Granada Reports. I wanted to say as much, only I looked up and saw tears in Judy’s eyes. ‘No, that wasn’t a criticism,’ I hastened to add. ‘Denim aftershave is my favourite. It takes me back, that’s all it is. Good memories. I don’t want to open it in case it evaporates.’

Judy smiled. ‘Oh, you don’t need to worry about that,’ she said. ‘I’m just glad that I’ve finally found you something you like. And what’s so good about it is that I can always get you some more when you run out. I’ll never be at a loss for what to buy your for your birthday.’

With that, Judy stood up. ‘I’ll go and check on the turkey,’ she said.

I smiled as she walked from the room.

‘God help me,’ I muttered as soon as she was gone. In only a matter of hours, I’d be greeting some of the most powerful people in the UK media. There was no way I wanted them to smell me like this. I also couldn’t let Judy think this had been one of her better ideas. I had to let her down in a way that made her feel like I was doing her a favour. Better still, she had to think she was saving me from myself.

There was only one option. I unscrewed the cap and knocked back the aftershave, all 100ml of the fire water. It tasted remarkably like Russian whisky and, like Russian whisky, left my lips quite numb.

‘Turply oplay?’ I asked as Judy came back.

She gazed at me before she looked at the empty bottle.

‘Oh, Richard,’ she said. ‘You said you’d never do that again. I thought you’d learnt your lesson with Old Spice.’

‘What canp I sthay, gorpgeous?’ I replied and raised the empty bottle. ‘Fill ’er up, and then give yourp Uncle Pichard a kissss.’

‘I suppose next year, I better buy socks,’ she muttered as she snatched the bottle from my fingers.

It was a sentiment with which I could only express my full agreement. I passed out on the sofa and slept a couple of hours until I was woken by Fry dressed as Santa dropping his large sack on my back.

But, as they say, my dear friends, that is a story for another day...

From Richard...

In case you’ve not noticed, it is now Christmas Day and it has fallen to me to be the first person of significance to wish you a very merry Christmas. I’d be very grateful if you would also do me the honour of also accepting my salutations for the New Year. So grateful, in fact, that I won’t even mention Global Warming, Iran’s uranium enrichment program, the mounting crisis in the world banks, and the fact that Lily Allen has begun to reproduce. Although each so frightening as to turn an Oddie grey, they are stories for 2008 and we do well to now worry about them now. No, really, we shouldn’t…

Instead, let me be my usual understated self by saying that there is a significant lack of words in the English language to describe the love I feel for you regular readers. The ‘occasionals’ I like too but, let’s face facts here: it’s the regular readers (even those of you who don't think I know you're even watching) who butter my Christmas muffins. If I could, I would have you all pickled and popped in jam jars for my mantelpiece, where your little wrinkled cadavers could be studied during the remaining dark days of winter before I bury you in the fertile loam of my back garden sometime in the spring. With the right nutrients and careful watering, I’d raise many more of you, multiplying my readership with a fruitful harvest in the Autumn. This time next year, we’d have an army and who knows what good we could do!

Enough about the distant future. My day is going to be a busy one. We’re holding a small party here at our home for just a few hundred celebrity friends. Homes across London will be empty between the hours of 8PM and 3AM, while their owners are here enjoying a feast the likes of which have not been seen since the days of the toga. If you’re driving in the area tonight, please take care of celebrities running out into the road. We don’t want any accidents like we had on Judy’s birthday, when Billie Piper was impaled on a juggernaut’s radiator grill and carried all the way to Bradford.

I’ll be back tomorrow, when my hangover has lifted, to cast an eye over the destruction. My advice to you all is not to drink or to drive, and to avoid putting the moves on a Nolan, an Izzard, or a Clarkson. As for a Madeley… Well, let’s never say never, shall we?

Merry Christmas.

My Christmas Gift to Judy

Men like Jeremy Clarkson are made for moments such as this. He has that indeterminable spirit of a wayward Fury, partly destructive yet with a remarkable caprice for making things better. You cannot stand in his way once he gets an idea into his head, which was exactly what was needed this morning when our resolve began to falter. If it hadn’t been for Jeremy, Judy might never have got her Christmas present. You see, he’s that integral to a successful festive season.

All that, however, is to get to the bacon before we’ve greased our lips with egg. The whole thing began after breakfast, this morning, when my gift to Judy arrived at the appointed hour and in perfect condition. She was not home at the time. I’d managed to get her out of the house by arranging for Denise Robertson to drop by at ten o’clock and suggest a bit of last minute elbowing through the Christmas crowds. That part of the plan went off like a clockwork pie. With Judy out of the way, the next stage could go ahead. A black London taxi arrived at ten thirty with our expert in the back.

‘Do you have to bother with that thing?’ asked Bill Oddie as he waited for Stephen Fry to finish fixing a lock to his steering wheel.

‘One can never tell with celebrity neighbours,’ replied Fry, which only led Oddie to make a rather mean remark about the intellect of men who drive London taxi cabs.

‘Stephen’s right,’ I said. ‘Just because many of the people in this street are respectable entertainers, it doesn’t mean that they’re not prone to the occasional bit of car theft. A Channel 4 executive recently told me that a high profile member of the spring schedule has a thing for doing doughnuts in bent super minis.’

‘I’ve heard the same rumours,’ said Bill, ‘though I don’t believe it has actually got anything to do with cars.’

If I looked shocked and not a little confused, I hadn’t time to dwell on it. A roar of a jet engine filled the street as Clarkson’s supercar fell from the sky.

‘So?’ he asked, an excited flush to his cheeks. ‘Has it arrived yet?’

I checked my watch. ‘Any time now, if the plan is going as arranged.’

Stephen took out a pocket watch from the front of his waistcoat and flipped open its cover. ‘I don’t see why it shouldn’t, given that I gave the plan its conception,’ he said. ‘If I have my numbers right, we should see the van arriving in three… two… one…’ He pointed to the end of the road.

‘Zero?’ asked Clarkson, snorting his amusement. That’s why he missed the large blue truck making a turn at the bottom of the road.

‘Ah,’ said Stephen, ‘I see that its front right tyre is low on pressure. That would more than account for a few seconds delay between here and central London.’

Bill gave a whistle, which sounded not unlike the appreciative note of a song thrush. I could only share his admiration for the man. You have admire such a brain. I have an urge to write Fry a verse drama using nothing but alexandrines in the New Year. Heroic couplets made from iambs just wouldn’t do him justice. I swear that there are moments in the day when I sometimes believe that he knows more than me.

‘Well gentlemen,’ said Clarkson, slapping his hands together. ‘Shall we get started?’

‘I think this is a most wonderful idea,’ said Stephen as we walked to the foot of the drive. ‘Were it my own, I would write about it in a novel.’

I slapped my old friend about the shoulder. ‘It was you who inspired me to be so bold,’ I replied. ‘Didn’t you tell me that there’s no gift as welcome as the gift of surprise?’

‘I may have remarked on that,’ he replied, ‘though perhaps in a manner that was both more witty and infinitely more succinct.’

As the lorry hissed to a stop at the foot of the drive, I felt something moving beneath my elbow. I looked down to see Oddie at my side. He was peering nervously at me over his glasses. ‘Do you have any idea about how difficult this is going to be?’

‘You’re the bird man,’ I said. ‘We’ll follow your lead. You said you’ve done this in Africa.’

He looked again at the van, which was blocking out the low December sun. Oddie doesn’t respond well to the gloom.

‘I don’t know if I can do this,’ he said.

It was much too late for doubts. The van’s driver was climbing out. He was a pasty looking fellow with a slight limp. This we only noticed when he dropped from the cab and winced as his right leg hit the ground.

‘That looked painful,’ I said as we approached.

‘Bloody thing took half an inch of flesh from my shin this morning,’ he said. ‘You Madeley?’

‘I am,’ I said. ‘Half an inch?’ I whistled between my teeth. It sounded nothing like a song thrush.

‘You’ve got to watch it with these things,’ said the driver. ‘They’re a bit dangerous.’

‘Rubbish,’ scoffed Clarkson. ‘I’ve been behind the wheel of an Ascari A10. Now that’s danger.’

‘Yes, well, mate, if you say so. But I know what I know. This ain’t something you should treat lightly.’

I turned and gestured to Bill. ‘Do you recognise this man?’ I asked.

‘Course I do,’ smiled the driver. ‘Mr. Oddie is a TV legend.’

‘Then you know I’ve ensured we’ve got the best in the business to handle this transaction.’

The driver shrugged and began to walk us to the back of the van. ‘If you say you know what you’re doing, who am I to argue?’ he asked.

The rear doors of the van opened to reveal a large cage inside. Inside the cage was my gift to Judy.

‘That’s a bloody big ostrich,’ said Stephen as the bird pecked violently at the cage.

I gave Stephen a surprised look. ‘That’s a bit prosaic of you,’ I said. ‘It was a line remarkably flat for a man of your calibre.’

‘One was momentarily distracted by the abundance of ostrich,’ he replied. ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’

I took a look at the bird. It was indeed a creature long in the leg and neck and with remarkable plumpness about its body. I then looked towards Bill hid behind Clarkson’s right knee. He too was remarkably plump about his body but his legs were visibly trembling.

‘I had to order the stoutest ostrich they had on the farm,’ I explained. ‘Do you think it’s okay?’

‘You certainly did that,’ replied Jeremy, moving to open the cage. ‘Look at those thighs. They’ll be able to handle the weight.’

It took Bill, Stephen, Jeremy, and myself a good half hour of coaxing to get the ostrich out of the cage and into the back garden. It was the sort of bird that really belongs in burlesque, more feathers than flesh and with the attitude of a slightly bad tempered stripper. If we hadn’t had Jeremy with us, I doubt if we’d have shifted the animal. Years of living with donkeys seem to have given him a special insight into the workings of stubborn animals.

By the time Judy arrived home at one, the whole scene was set. I went out to meet her at the car and, after covering her eyes with my hand, I escorted her into the back garden where events were due to unfold.

‘Well,’ I asked as I pulled my fingers from Judy’s eyes.

The sight to greet her was one of the most remarkable I think I’ll ever witness. Bill Oddie was racing around the back garden on the back of the ostrich, as Jeremy Clarkson held the end of a long reign. He used the free end to lash the bird onwards, keeping it running in a giant circle around our expansive back lawn. Meanwhile, Stephen was sitting to one side, reciting a special poem he’d written for the occasion. All three were clearly in their element, and Bill enjoying himself more than any. Holding on with one hand, he used the other to wave frantically as he shouted comic things like ‘get me off’ and ‘I’m going to fall’ and ‘I don’t like this’. Like I’ve said before, the man is of the highest order of good sports.

After a few moments, Judy looked at me.

‘Richard,’ she said, ‘why is Bill Oddie riding an ostrich around our lawn?’

‘It’s my Christmas gift to you,’ I explained. ‘Unfortunately, I couldn’t arrange it for tomorrow. The ostrich farm could only deliver it today.’

I hadn’t bargained for her to look so confused. ‘You thought I’d want this for Christmas? You thought I’d want to see Bill Oddie riding an ostrich?’

‘Well, no, not technically. Bill is just showing you how it’s done so you’ll know what to do when it’s time for you to have a go.’

‘I’m having a go?’ She laughed a bark of amusement. ‘Richard, you must be joking. You don’t honestly think I’m getting on that?’

‘Well it is what you asked for,’ I replied.

‘You think I’d want to ride an ostrich?’

‘Well that’s what you said! Two weeks ago when I mentioned about Christmas, you said you’d love to ride an ostrich.’

Judy’s face broke out into a wide grin. ‘What I said, Richard, if you’d bothered to unplug yourself from your iPhone, was that I’d love to be treated to a ride in an old stretch limo.’

‘You said ostrich!’ I protested.

She shook her head slowly. ‘Old stretch,’ she said and planted a kiss on my cheek. ‘But it was a lovely thought. And when it comes to memorable Christmas gifts, I don’t think there’s anything I’m going to remember with such fondness. How many women can say they’ve had Bill Oddie ride an ostrich for them for Christmas.’

‘Not even Mrs. Oddie,’ I admitted.

Well, what else could I do or say? I was utterly confused. In the end, I put my arm around my wife and we watched Bill as he carried on riding the bird, which never seemed to tire as it was whipped on faster and further by a quite gleeful Jeremy Clarkson. I wished that the moment would never end. Which it didn’t. Or at least, not for another hour filled with mirth and comic pleas for us to stop.

The Church of the Sacred Richard

Having been woken by a neighbour drilling into a concrete patio at 8.55 this morning, I’m still not fully back with the world. Yesterday's Christmas shopping took it out of me more than I like to admit, so you’ll have to excuse me if this is another of my shorter posts. They might be the norm for the next few days. Of course, there’s every chance that they won’t be the norm and I’ll be writing at length on Christmas Day, as if to prove what a sad time we celebrities really have when away from your screens. I think I’m just allergic to tinsel, while Judy can’t get enough of the stuff.

I don’t know an easy way of escaping Christmas beyond becoming a Jehovah’s Witness. It seems to me an odd paradox that the best way to avoid the festivities is to become a Christian. You rarely, if ever, hear an atheist or agnostic say that since they don’t believe in/doubt the existence of God, they don’t celebrate Christmas. Yet if you’re a Jehovah’s Witness, you can get away with it every single year. People will, in fact, go out of their way not to offend your sensibilities.

Perhaps I should form my own sect, The Church of the Sacred Richard. It would attract a huge membership. Although it’s no longer a novelty to say that Christmas is the great feast of consumerism, everybody walks around muttering darkly about how much they hate it. The obligation to go into debt amazes me each year, even as I’m handing over my credit cards buying things for friends, family and Oddie. We go through the motions as if there’s no other choice. Well, TCotSR is that choice.

There’s another side of Christmas which I’m completely in tune with and which TCotSR would help promote: the need to spend a week away from work and worries. It’s just a shame that I’ll be spending January trying to make amends for the previous month’s excesses, both in terms of my finances and the time I’ve wasted sitting in front of the TV and watching a full season of Carry On films. For me, writing and blogging, I find that I need consistency. Christmas is coming at a bad time for me this year. Sometimes it comes at the wrong timde for us. That’s why, in The Church of the Sacred Richard, we celebrate Christmas when we want it.

If you’re interested in joining, sign in the comments and I’ll have your vestments made measure. Bishop Fry or Archdeacon Oddie will be leading this week's service in The Dog & Duck, Lewisham. Book early to reserve your seat.

Frothing About Froth

What should the froth/liquid ratio be in a good cappuccino? Is ‘a good cappuccino’ a oxymoron or does it only become so when we change it to ‘a good Starbucks cappuccino’?

These are the somewhat unexpected questions I find myself asking after a day on the front lines of the Christmas sales. We made it home, leaving the field of battle with only moderate lesions. Behind us there were a few isolated scenes of destruction wherever Judy did decide to tread. Some days I fear she’s more elbow than woman. Presents have been bought for our nearest and dearest. I tried my best for all you regular readers, though I fear that some of your comments didn’t get through in time. It was unfortunate that I couldn’t check my email on my iPhone due to an issue of incompatibility between my gloves and the touch screen.

The highlight of my day was an argument I managed to start at the local Starbucks where I refused to accept a cup of their milky java which contained 70% froth and 30% liquid. It amazes me when I do complain, being on the whole a rather placid man. I would say the Christmas spirit brought the best out of me but I like to think it’s because I’ve been reading A.A. Gill’s ‘The Angry Island’. It has encouraged me to become more overt in my displays of disappointment. Not for me, this hypothesis that we’re a nation of people who suppress their anger and then go and invent new and exciting types of lagging. There are no trips down the Nile because I couldn’t tell my wife that I don’t like the colour of her curtains.

Instead, mug in hand, I stormed the serving counter and demanded action.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t normally do this but I’ve been reading A.A. Gill’s “The Angry Isle” which has encouraged me to be more overt in my displays of disappointment. This cappuccino is more froth than milk.’

The serving assistants looked at me as though I’d asked them to run my cup through a battery of highly scientific tests to detect neutrinos. After one of those long moments in which the world seems to stand still, in silence, one of them gathered the general gist of what I was saying.

‘Cappachino is supposed to be half froth.’ she said, her eyes as empty of wits as the mug was devoid of dairy product. 'They all vary quite a bit.'

I looked at her and smiled. ‘The average human IQ is supposed to be 100 but I sure this fact didn't stop one's mother feeling a great sense of disappointment when it was recognised that we fell below that.’

She was surprisingly quick. ‘There’s no need to be rude,’ she said. ‘It’s not my fault that you don’t know your coffee.’

‘I don’t know it because I’ve yet to have been introduced to it.’

‘Well,’ she replied, picking up the jug of milk and topping up my cup. 'Nobody else seems to have a problem.'

‘I bet they don't,’ I said, darkly. ‘It’s this kind of shoddy treatment that makes me long for less professionalism in the catering service.’

And that, I think, is a truth of our consumer society. We have the perception that things improve because coffee shops have better decor and a more varied menu. Yet the identikit façades mask highly evolved organisms that put the customers’ needs a distant second to profit. Froth is the battleline where we stand nose to nose. They will know the exact froth to coffee ratio that ensures that 9 in 10 people don't complain. If they can sell half a cup of froth, that’s 9 half-cups of milk they save themselves. Transfer that to every Starbucks across the land and they must be saving millions. I fear for the milkmen. Starbucks must account for the majority of those notes left out in the morning that read, ‘No milk today, thank you’.

I think I made a difference today. Gill has clearly changed my attitude and my life. Though whether I was right to subsequently buy two collections of his essays is yet to be determined. There is only so much change that Judy will accept and what that cantankerous / placid ratio might be is much harder to judge.

Preparing To Do Some Serious Elf Harm

It’s now late Friday night and I’m sitting here feeling quite perplexed as to why Cactus TV have failed to send me their Christmas greetings. At the very least, I thought I’d be invited to their Christmas party tonight. They forget me each year, yet here I’ve sat, all night, dressed as a Christmas elf packing a bottle of Blue Nun. I suppose their party is now drawing to an inebriated close with Dr. Raj’s doing his Britney Spears impression with a couple of finger rolls.

I'm also perplexed by the first results of the new poll. Only two votes are encouraging me to write my autobiography, nobody has requested more of my celebrated poetry, and one of you have suggested that I should give up blogging. The only consolation is that the majority of you feel that 2008 will be a year of celebrity nuptials.

Such disappointments perhaps accounts for why I’m posting something brief tonight. But it’s not the only reason. ‘Operation Elbow ’goes into operation at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Judy and I are already girding ourselves for a lighting raid on London’s shops to finalise the Christmas gifts. We’ll be first through the doors when the stores open at nine and we should hopefully be home before the crowds descend. It leaves me with this brief window of opportunity to ask you all what you want. Get your requests in now and I’ll see what we can do. There aren’t many of you, so I’m looking to spend no more than a couple of hundred pounds on each of you.

If you're lost for ideas, why not ask me for an electronic toothbrush or the new Charlie Brown DVD?

Zorg the Destroyer

By eleven o’clock, Madeley was one of those happily contented figure you typically read about at Christmas. A small glass of port had spread warmth through these tired old bones of mine and A.A. Gill’s gently paced sojourn through the English psychology had weakened my resolve to linger a moment longer in my armchair. Already drifting across that boundary between wakefulness and sleep, I had turned off the Christmas tree lights before I slowly climbed the stairs to bed, only stopping off at the bathroom to change into my pyjamas and dressing gown and to fill myself a glass of water in which I would soon leave my million pound smile to soak.

I was about to pull the master switch that turns off the outdoor floodlights and arms the infra red turrets on the battlements, when there was a fretful hammering on the front door. Such was the indecency of the hour and the panicked nature of the knocking, I was immediately awake and my old army training kicked in. I was down the stairs in three leaps and had the front door opened and the intruder wrestled to the ground in the time it has taken you to read about it in a line of my immaculately written prose.

It was only when the red mist began to clear that I recognised the small figure trapped beneath my knee. It was Mrs. Ronnie Corbett, dressed in her night gown and wearing a look of absolute terror on her face.

‘My poor woman,’ I said, moving the sharp edge of my tube of denture cleaner from her jugular. ‘What must you think of me, throwing you over my shoulder like that?’

‘Richard, you have to come,’ she said as I helped her to her feet. She was clearly shivering, obviously with the cold, so I moved her into the living room and sat her in a chair before draped my dressing gown around her shoulders. ‘Ronnie’s had a terrible accident,’ she explained, ‘and they said an ambulance can’t come for a good two hours.’

‘Don’t you worry yourself, Mrs. C.,’ I said. ‘You were right to come here. There are few people in this street that are more used to dealing with emergencies than Judy and me.’

As if to prove the point, I promptly nipped upstairs, grabbed my car keys, and told Judy about our visitor. Then I came running back downstairs and rushed out to the car. I was at the front door of Corbett Manor in less than three minutes. That’s when I realised I was still in my pyjamas and that I’d left Mrs. Ronnie Corbett sitting on the chair in our front room.

I was about to get back in the car when headlights flooded the drive. It was Judy in her little Suzuki Swift bringing Mrs. Corbett and keys to the house.

‘We thought we’d better come along,’ said Judy, who had somehow managed to waste three minutes dressing herself, applying full make-up, and picking out a suit for Mrs. Ronnie Corbett. I told her that I had more important matters on my mind.

We found Ronnie in an armchair, a huge log fire burning beside him, and the poor man writhing in agony. Blood speckled his tartan trousers. His lime green intarsia golfing sweater offended the eye.

‘It was the walnut,’ explained Ronnie as I kneeled at his side. ‘It shattered in my lap.’

‘That is only too clear,’ I said. A pair of nutcrackers lay on the floor, alongside a spilled bowl of Tesco’s finest selection of Yuletide nuts. The poor man had obviously become one of only three people who, on average each year, are injured when an abnormally pressurised walnut explodes with the force of a hand grenade. Razor sharp shards of walnut shell had penetrated his trousers and caused extensive damage to his lower regions.

‘We can’t move him like this,’ I said, examining the site of the injury. ‘Some of these pieces of walnut could be lodged in vital regions.’ I stood up and looked for the nearest phone. ‘We need help immediately or he might never play golf again.’

‘Is it that bad?’ asked Ronnie.

‘Sit tight, little fellow,’ I said, laying a reassuring hand on his head. ‘Stay still and don’t, for god’s sake, tell any anecdotes involving the letter P.’

‘Ah, no… Indeed…’ he said. ‘Which reminds me… Ha! Did I tell you the one about the Polish postman?’ His face winced with pain as he mouthed those lethal syllables.

‘I told you not to,’ I said as I began to dial the number I’ve learned to memorise for moments such as this.

As you know, Judy’s a woman unable to restrain her curiosity. And we know what that did the cat, though forensic evidence was lacking.

‘What about the Polish postman?’ she asked, to my utter dismay.

Ronnie, ever the hero, let out a trademark ‘ah ha!’ and then delivered his punch line with his usual immaculate timing.

‘He delivered the mail on time,’ he said before he pushed his glasses up his nose and passed out.

I shook my head. I could hear a phone ringing. A moment later, there was a click.

‘’Tis I, Fry, on my iPhone, currently engaged in an online game of Halo3 under my XBox gamer tag of Zorg the Destroyer.’

‘Hello, Zorg,’ I said, ‘’tis I, Madeley, on Ronnie Corbett’s telephone. We need your help.’

‘Oh, hush!’ said Stephen. ‘Were it that I could lay aside my railgun and come to your aid, but I fear that my gaming reputation would suffer enormously were I do abandon this festive firefight while Zorg the Destroyer currently tops the frag leaderboard and pwns the arse of the Lapwing of Death’

‘Pwns the arse of the Lapwing of Death?’ I asked before I could help myself.

‘Alas, our friend Oddie is new to the fragfest which is Halo3. He has yet to acquaint himself with the tactics of finding himself a high vantage point and a sniper rifle. Some players frown on it, but I, Zorg the Destroyer, says it’s a true Englishman’s calling and the only reliable means of dispatching these alien scum.’

‘Stephen, we need your help immediately,’ I said, hearing a groan from the armchair as Ronnie regained consciousness. ‘A walnut has shattered in Ronnie’s lap. I think he’s suffering from severe shell lacerations, with what I can only describe as potential trauma to his hazelnuts.’ I looked at Mrs. Corbett and Judy, neither of whom seemed to understand my euphemism. Ronnie obviously did. He groaned and again passed out.

‘Ah,’ said Fry. ‘Walnuts are pwning little Ronnie’s hazelnuts? Then Zorg the Destroyer will be there immediately. I advise you to move neither the patient nor his nuts.’

Sound advice. Instead, I got Ronnie a glass of whiskey and poured it down him as soon as he came around. Judy had found a large rug to keep him warm, and we all sat around, taking turns to stroke Ronnie’s brow as he grew increasingly feverish. After fifteen minutes, I was beginning to fear for him. The poor man had begun to recite old scripts to ‘Sorry’, which I thought had been unhealthy enough the first time.

Eventually, I saw lights flicker beyond the window and the sound of a diesel engine pull up outside.

‘That’s Stephen,’ I said.

Judy jumped up and was at the door before the Great Man could knock.

‘Ah! The lacerations of the festive walnut,’ said Stephen, appearing in the doorway. He cast his cape to one side and came to loom over Ronnie. ‘So, might I see the sight of the explosion?’

I pulled back the rug and Stephen winced. ‘Tartan and lime green. A combination that the BBC has happily outlawed.’ He gazed at the spread of the wound. ‘I’m afraid we shall have to remove the trousers. Ladies, could you please leave the room? This will not be pretty.’ He opened his medical bag and removed a pair of scissors with which he proceeded to cut away Ronnie’s tartan britches.

The operation was slow and extremely gory. Ronnie was fitful throughout, though brave and screaming only once as Stephen dug a large chunk of walnut from his groin.

‘Ah, the walnut is indeed a terrible weapon,’ said Stephen, swabbing the wound. ‘Were it only a landmine.’

Around three o’clock in the morning, the last stitch had been sewn and a good colour had returned to Ronnie’s face.

‘There,’ said Stephen standing up. ‘All done. And a pretty little job I’ve done of it. You were damn lucky, young Corbett, that I spend a few months last Autumn training to be a surgeon.’

‘I’m so grateful,’ whispered Ronnie. ‘I’m grateful to the two of you.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Stephen. ‘What are friends for if it’s not for coming to dig fragments of walnut from your unmentionables.’ He turned to look at me. ‘And now, if you don’t mind, I have spent the last hour trying my best not to mention that large gap in Richard’s pyjama bottoms exposing his lack of underwear and the coldness of the evening.’

Ronnie smiled. ‘Nothing we haven’t seen a hundred times,’ he said as he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

I closed the gap in my pyjamas but Stephen just patted my shoulder. ‘My advice to you sir, is fear not the walnut! Were one to explode in your lap, it could only correct the deficit that nature so cruelly intended.’

My Letter To Cactus TV

Much to my horror, I've today realised that I haven't thanked the good people at Cactus TV for all the work they've put in over the last twelve months, making the show the success it is. I've hastily dispatched the following email to them, along with my official Christmas card.


Hi Guys!

Many years ago, a star shone brightly over Romford, East London, and a baby boy was born. That child grew up and, yay, how the people loved him! Well now that boy is a man and he wants to wish you all a very merry Christmas.

Speaking for all of us at ‘The Richard Madeley Appreciation Society’, I just wanted to say that ‘The Richard&Judy Show’ is a success because of the little people. And by little people, I don’t mean nanuses.* I mean you guys at Cactus TV. You are the people who put the shows together and it wouldn’t be the same without your input.

So, have a great holiday and a spirited New Year,

Hugs, squiggles, and kisses,

Dick

* I don’t mean to jump to any conclusions. If you do employ any people of diminutive size, then it’s quite clear that they also contribute to your much deserved success. Granted, they probably don’t do any heavy lifting work, like shifting scenery or moving the sofa, but I’m sure they do work that’s commensurable with their size and I would want to send them my suitably proportioned best wishes for the festive season.

The Autobiography: BBC Radio Carlisle

Both The Daily Mail and The Sunday Times have contacted my agent to see if they could be the first to print details from my forthcoming autobiography. Instead, I’ve decided that you, the dear disciples of my Appreciation Society, should have the first opportunity to read extracts from the book. Unfortunately, there were certain contractual obligations I was forced to accept along with my £500,000 advance and I only have permission to post a few chapters here. The rest of the book will have to remain a secret until it goes to press in the summer.

For the moment, I hope you'll enjoy chapter one, which opens at the beginning of my broadcasting career, when I was working at BBC Radio Carlisle.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the beginning, there were knees.

There were two knees, to be precise, dressed in an airy fold of chequered trouser with full Donny Osmond flair, and they were both mine, rattling together at a good rate as I counted off the steps leading up to the newsroom at BBC Radio Carlisle. The peculiar garb surrounding the knees could be attributed to the wild days of 1975, their energy to the fact that this thin grub of a nineteen year old had just come back from recording the interview that would change his life.

How strange it is to describe my younger self. Six ripe feet of confidence, an inch or so of ambition, and the whole thing topped off with a twist of something special. Young Madeley was made in my image, or I made in his, and there was nothing that was going to stand in the way of our reaching the top.

My shoulder made light work of the newsroom doors as I barged into the studios that day. I marched towards my desk at the rear of the office, giving a mighty lung of ‘Hi guys!’ to the small enclave of reporters stuck there.

‘Ah, Madeley,’ said old Ben Primrose, the station’s chief newsreader, editor, and the man who taught me the golden rule that reporters always go that extra mile for a good scoop. He was sitting on his chair, feet on his desk, and a pencil prying that extra mile into the cavity of his right nostril. ‘I trust you’re sounding so bright because you’ve finally brought me the piece on the council’s grid replacement policy I asked for last week.’

‘I’ve got something better,’ I told him. ‘Prepare to see the future! The impish charm of Madeley has done it again!’

‘Done what?’

I brushed him aside and made my way to the desks beyond. One was my own; the other, that of Simon Drisdale, a behemoth of casualwear and skin conditions. He was related to Primrose in a way that I never did establish and was rapidly making a name for himself as a local crime reporter, first on the scene of every snatched bag and tampered parking meter.

‘I have in my possession a tape containing twenty minutes of quality gossip and chat.’ I turned to face the pair of them as I set my heavy tape recorder on my desk and let the strap fall from my shoulder.

‘Gossip?’ scoffed Drisdale. ‘And here I was thinking that you were out there working on a proper story.’

‘Gossip can be news too,’ I said, taking off my jacket and sitting down at my desk. The big tape deck had rubbed my shoulder raw but it had been worth it.

‘So who have you interviewed?’ asked Drisdale.

Officially, Primrose was the only person who could question me about my role in the news department. Not that this stopped his relative-of-undisclosed-significance from giving me the third degree when he felt like it.

I looked at him and felt a smile spread my upper cheeks. ‘On this tape I have an interview with the nation’s favourite funny man.’

‘Richard Briars!’ laughed Ben from the other desk. ‘I love The Good Life as much as the next person but it’s hardly news.’

‘It’s not Richard Briars,’ I replied.

‘Eric Morecambe?’ returned Drisdale. ‘Bob “Golden Shot” Monkhouse? The Honourable Nicholas Parsons of “Sale of the Century” fame? Or is it Ed “Stewpot” Stewart from “Crackerjack”?’

‘Crackerjack!’ cried Ben.

I was in no mood for antics. ‘I’m talking about Bill Oddie.’ I said at last.

‘The Goodie?’ snorted Ben. ‘Are they still going?’

‘Man, oh, man! Are they! This is 1975!’ I said, winding the spool to the beginning of the interview. ‘The Goodies are this decades Beatles, only they’ve promised us that they’ll never break up.’

‘Perhaps they should,’ said Ben. ‘Then you might have some news for me and a good reason why this radio station continues to ignore the large scale replacement of the county’s grids.’ He swung his legs from the desk and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he ran a hand across his well oiled comb-over. It was the hairstyle of choice for any true radio or TV journalist and I had found myself envying it on more than one occasion. ‘You really don’t understand what we’re doing here, do you Madeley?' he asked. 'People turn on their radios to hear news. They want to know about the world situation, what the Mr. Wilson has to say…’

‘And crime,’ added Drisdale. ‘People want to know that their handbags are safe and, if they’re not safe, they want us to assure them that The Sweeney are just around the corner.’

‘Exactly right, Simon. You see, Madeley, our audience expect us to be serious. They don’t turn on the radio to be entertained. They want news about grids. Not some squeaky voiced hippy telling us about a show he’s made for dim witted children.’

‘But the news of the future will be like this,’ I protested. ‘The news of the future will be full of celebrity gossip and journalists won’t have to go out and get stories. Stories will come to us. We won’t have to talk about grids. We’ll spend our days with interesting people, learning about their fascinating projects. We won’t need to go down to community centres and interview people about bring and buy sales. Journalists of tomorrow won't know how to spell "fête". We’ll be in state of the art studios, listening to Cilla Black tell a funny anecdote about Johnny Morris and a lemur.’

Ben picked his pencil again, only this time to use its moist end to gesture at me. ‘Cilla Black’s lemur might be the future, Madeley,’ he said, ‘but, while I’m in charge, you won’t be filling our airtime with any of that celebrity rubbish. You need to sort yourself out or you’ll never be a success here at BBC Radio Carlisle. If you aspire to sit in this seat, you’ll have to learn what it is that people want. Remember, it might not be as exciting as interviewing Bob Oddle, but there’s nothing wrong with an honest story about grids.’

History teaches us that the briefest of moments can radically change the future. This could well have been one of those times. I sat at my desk, fury cramping my hands on that tape machine. I looked up into Drisdale’s face and saw a look of elevated pleasure inflating his cheeks until they were taut, red, with a sheen of delight as though they were ready to burst.

Barely able to hold my anger back, I grabbed my jacket.

‘Where are you going?’ asked Ben.

‘I’ve left my notebook at Bob Oddle’s hotel room,’ I lied and stormed from the building. I thought I’d never go back.

That night, I lay alone in my room in the small bedsit on Viaduct Road and stared up at the cracked, water-stained plaster, much as I imagine Michelangelo occasionally took a gander at a ceiling and wondered how it would look with a few pert breasted nymphs. Only I saw visions of a different kind. I saw sofas and television sets dressed in creams and shades of pastel. I saw happy faces engaged in light hearted banter about a whole manner of interesting subject. I could see myself, sitting alone on that large sofa, talking to the world’s most celebrated people and occasionally cutting across what they were saying with a choice observation of my own. Just as I began to interview Dolly Parton and tell her about uses of mutton in the Restoration, a voice cut through it all and brought me back to Carlisile.

‘Richard? There’s somebody on the phone,’ shouted Mrs. Crumb, my landlady, from the bottom of the stairs. ‘He says his name’s Ben.’

I picked up the phone with a sullen grasp, all fingers and very little palm.

‘Hello?’ said a voice I knew at once wasn't that of Ben Primrose. ‘Is that young Madeley?’

I said that it was.

‘Bill Oddie here…’

My heart skipped not one beat but a few and certainly enough to kill a less healthy man. Poor old Mrs. Crumb. Through the persistent wax that plugs her ears, ‘Bill’ had become ‘Ben’. Instead of being told that I’d been relieved of my grid reporting duties at BBC Radio Carlisle, I was again speaking to the world’s greatest Goodie.

‘Are you the young chap who came and interviewed me today?’ asked Oddie. ‘Only, I was wondering if my interview had been broadcast yet.’

‘N… no, no it hasn’t,’ I stammered. ‘And to be honest, it might never get broadcast.’

‘Oh,’ said Bill. ‘Was it not good enough?’

‘It’s not that, at all. I’ve been told the interview doesn’t fit with the news policy of BBC Radio Carlisle.’

‘I see,’ said Oddie. ‘That’s a bit awkward isn’t it? Still, I suppose there’s no harm done. You can always boast that I’m the Goodie that got away.’

‘That’s not the point,’ I said, my passion overwhelming me. ‘They should play your interview. I know there are lots of people out there who want to hear about your life as a Goodie. They want to know if Graham’s sideburns are really his own? Does Tim really wear union jacket underpants? Do you all sleep in the same bed and, if so, who lies in the middle?’

‘Oh, it will all have to wait for another time,’ replied Bill. ‘Don’t be too down about it. It’s not that important. It’s just an interview…’

‘But it isn’t just an interview,’ I said, scolding the man. ‘Can’t you see that’s the problem? This is about the future.’ Somewhere, my appeals had turned into sobs and my face felt the heavy grease of the deepest tears. ‘Why do interviews have to be dull? Why should the interviewer not ask the questions that everybody wants answered? And why can’t I occasionally chip in with a word or two of my own? Were you offended just because I stopped the interview to explain my theory on how termites reproduce?’

‘No…’

‘Of course you weren’t!’ I replied. ‘If anything, it turned an average interview into something that would enhanced our mutual reputations. And don’t you see that this is the future? Didn’t people tell the young Henry Ford that he was mad when he fitted a petrol engine to an ironing board? But didn’t he show them?’

Oddie seemed startled. His voice rose an octave. ‘Oh, I didn’t know that he did… An ironing board? Fancy that.'

‘The first petrol power ironing board,’ I corrected.

‘Yes,’ said Bill. ‘But regarding my interview, I’m sure you’ll take them around if you tell them how you feel about it.’

‘They might do, except I’ve decided to quit,’ I explained, as much to myself as to Oddie. I’d worked so hard to get a break in journalism that, until this point, I hadn’t been able to acknowledge how far this setback had taken me. My voice was strangled by emotion. ‘The truth is, Mr. Oddie,’ I gasped, ‘I’m beginning to think that the news business isn’t for me…’

I didn’t wait for a reply. So overwhelmed by disappointment, I simply thanked him for ringing me and I hung up the phone. Soon I was back in my room. I dropped onto the bed and fell into a deep sleep, my own tears replaced by those of a specially invited audience of viewers laughing at my interview with Bob Hope.

The noise of feet storming the stairs woke me, perhaps an hour later. Then the door rattled.

I rolled out of my cot, surprised to find myself still wearing my office clothes.

Light blistered my eyeballs the moment I opened the door.

They were colours like I’ve never known, cast into shapes, psychodelic and mysterious, where the wild orient mated with abstract geometry with a hint of the Hawaiian. A shirt the colour of a molten sky was being assaulted by a gold medallion, handing over a pair of bright yellow dungarees. The whole ensemble was overgrown by coarse black hair, spouting from every opening yet the whole of this burning mess reached no higher than my elbows.

Standing on the doorstep was a bundle of fundamental elements, in a hot state of comic fusion.

‘Grab your coat and come with me,’ said the nation’s favourite Goodie. ‘There’s something I want you to see.’

Playing God

That oaf Clarkson rang me, Sunday afternoon, when I had my heels set to the horizontal and a bowl of cornflakes dancing in my lap. I hadn’t got up late as much as transferred my slumber from the bed to my favoured armchair. You know the one… with the large vibrating cushion? On a medium massage, the chair can turn a bowl of milk into butter before you’ve finished spooning flakes of cereal to your mouth. I was certainly in no fit mood to be taking telephone calls from men with points to prove.

‘Dick? Jeremy,’ said Clarkson. ‘Listen. You know Top Gear’s not on tonight because of the billiards? Well, I want you to come over. I need your help.’

A large flake of vitamins and goodness hung from my chin, held there by a dribbling of the local dairy’s finest. ‘Want? Need?’ I repeated. ‘These aren’t words a man likes to hear on a Sunday.’

Clarkson sounded shocked. ‘And since when have I not been allowed to ask you to return me a favour on a Sunday?’

‘But it’s a day for cornflakes and football,’ I protested. ‘How can I come and help you when I’m wearing only my dressing gown?’

‘Is this the very same Dick Madeley who needed my help only last week?’ asked Clarkson, adopting that voice designed to mock a man within an inch of his life. ‘Wasn’t it you who said: “Don’t worry, Jeremy. If you ever need help, you know you can call on me”?’

‘But that was a weekday promise,’ I explained. ‘When you do a favour for somebody on a weekday, you expect to pay it back on a weekday.’

‘What?’

I moved the phone from my ear as Clarkson detonated a barrel full of bluster. I turned my attention to a large cornflake which I kidnapped from the bowl before cruelly breaking it on my teeth. When the hectoring noise from the telephone ended, I put it back to my ear.

‘It stands to reason,’ I said. ‘A weekday favour cannot be called in between midnight on Friday and midnight Sunday. That makes it a weekend favour, which are worth far more. You’d then be in my debt and by a considerable amount. If fact, more than I’d be happy to loan you.’

‘I’ve never heard such rubbish,’ spluttered Jeremy.

‘You say it’s rubbish but I say it’s common knowledge. Everybody knows that a weekend favour weighs more than a weekday favour.’

At that moment Judy came in, her face flushed from a morning down at the stables with her show ponies. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I’ll put you on speaker phone and let’s see what Judy has to say.’

I pressed the button and the red light came on the phone. ‘Are you there Jeremy?’

‘I’m here,’ sighed Clarkson.

‘Now, Judy, let me ask you since you’re impartial…’ Jeremy sniffed his distain at that one. ‘If a man does another man a favour on a weekday, can that other man expect to call his friend to do them a favour on a weekend? Doesn’t this other favour have to weigh the same?’

‘There’s no such thing as the weight of a favour,’ answered Judy, much to my surprise. ‘When you do a favour for a friend, it doesn’t matter what day of the week it is.’

‘See!’ cried the phone. ‘Good old Judy. Well done my dear. Now get your lazy husband out of his chair and get him down to my place. I need his help.’

With the argument lost, the appeal of my bowl of cornflakes faded. Even my vibrating cushion seemed to mock me. I dumped breakfast in the waste disposal, threw my dressing gown on the living room floor, and marched myself naked back to my bedroom where I dressed myself as though it were a weekday. Forty minutes later, I was in light casuals, open necked shirt, sunglasses hooked coquettishly in the V, and pulling up at the gates to Clarkson’s place. I was surprised to see that they were already open and even more surprised when a donkey came trotting out, Clarkson trailing behind it.

‘You took your damn time,’ he said, dragging a reign on the donkey and bringing it to a stop.

‘What’s with the mule?’ I asked.

‘This is Florence,’ he said, a bit dopy, and grabbed the donkey by an ear. ‘Lovely creatures, donkeys. Very docile.’

‘And this is what I’m here for? A donkey related problem? Why didn’t you call Oddie? You know he loves this sort of thing.’

‘You don’t even know what this sort of thing is,’ said Jeremy. ‘You see a donkey and assume it’s some woolly eared job involving cardigans. Well it isn’t. I’ve got you here for a totally different reason. I want you to play God.’

‘God?’ I asked. ‘Don’t you think I grow tired of being typecast?’

‘I’m sure you do but the local sect of Christian types have asked to borrow my donkey for their nativity. They’ve also asked me to play the voice of God.’

‘There’s a terrifying thought,’ I muttered.

‘I’ve agreed but I’ve got cold feet or, at least, a slightly chilled larynx. That’s why I rang you. I want you to do it in my place. There’s not much to it. Lots of proclaiming. You get to say “thee” and “thou” a lot. And the occasional roar.’

‘You didn’t think of ringing Fry? The man’s a born actor.’

‘I did but he said he thought the role beneath him,’ explained Jeremy. ‘Oddie agreed to do it only so long as he could leave the earth not to the meek but the meerkats.’

I could see Jeremy’s problem. ‘I’ll do it,’ I said, resigned to do the man a favour, ‘but you’ll have to pay me back. This is worth at least a few hundred words for my blog.’

‘Anything,’ said Jeremy. ‘I’ll even let you ride Florence down to the village hall if you like.’

‘I’ll leave that to you, Jeremy,’ I said, backing towards the Range Rover. ‘I’ll meet you down there. These days, God prefers to travel in his four by four listening to Chris de Burgh’s greatest hits.’

Clarkson visibly paled. ‘Oh my merciful heaven! Chris de Burgh?’

‘What can I say, Jeremy? God does like to move in mysterious ways...’

Madeley Restored

The sparrows were not at fault.

I should have known all along that they could not be culpable. It shouldn’t have taken my ringing up Bill Oddie to bring them back and install them back in the eaves for me to know they do not boost a WIFI signal. According to Fry, the reason my broadband failed was because the line had been ‘severed by either a vengeful rodent or a sullen wife’. Judy claims she knows nothing of snipped cables, though if you were to put her on a lie detector, I’m sure the truth would come pouring out of her. She’s been oddly happy today and, if I didn’t know better, I’d say that my broadband was sabotaged in order to get me out of the house.

If so, then I need to thank her. I sometimes forget how good it is to get away from this office. I spend relatively little time in London and I sometimes forget how much it frees the brain of the cobwebs that accumulate over the weeks and months of labouring with words. Writing the scripts for the next series of The Richard&Judy Show, along with writing much of the material for Dick Justice, I have become like the proverbial candle lit at both ends. Yesterday, the two flames met at the middle and there was no more. I could barely rouse myself to write a word, despite their being an episode from Sunday that’s worth relating as it’s both festive and involving Clarkson at his most argumentative.

Now I’m home, I’m eager to write and I’m burning white hot with ambitions and ideas. You might have to give me 24 hours or so to catch up. I’m also working my way through a copy of The Angry Island that began as pristine and slowly getting dog-eared.

I’ll end this update here. I can hear the sound of a ladder being propped against eaves. It will be Oddie, back to remove sparrows for the second time today. Hopefully my broadband connection will hold up and I’ll be able to post this.

Service Announcement: Regarding Sparrows

If you care to imagine Bill Oddie scrambling up a set of ladders in order to rescue sparrows trapped beneath the ramparts of the Madeley home, then you’d have an idea of the events of yesterday afternoon and why I’m writing such a short post this lunchtime. The sparrows seemed to hold the key to my broadband connection. Since their removal, I’ve had no internet and have been forced to a cafe in the city from where I’m posting this. It’s a sobering experience for a man of my celebrity.

Until Fry can come around later today (he’s very busy, at the moment, recording voice overs), I’ll be off the radar. He suspects that the sparrows were acting as some kind of free flying booster units to my wireless connection and thinks there may well be a fortune to be made in this discovery. I’m not so sure but I can only ask you to bear with me.

Normal service will resume shortly with a particularly galling account of my Sunday spent with Jeremy Clarkson. In the meantime, I’m off to do some Christmas shopping.

The Celebrity Standings

Seventeen days into December, I see that 'The Richard Madeley Appreciation Society' has grown by around twenty six thousand words. Had I been aiming for literary prizes, I’d be a quarter of the way through my novel set in Ireland. My poor Irish orphan would still be struggling to overcome her allergy to stout, and I’d be beginning to chart her rise to become the most powerful woman in the land. Sometime in January, I’d be describing how she swims off into the Atlantic leaving a hairy-lipped peat cutter to bewail his unconsummated love over her bloated corpse. Something like that... I haven’t worked out the details but it's the stuff of literary prizes, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Since the pre-Christmas slump has started, I thought I’d begin to ease myself into holiday mode. This is aided by the simple fact that I don’t need to write any 2000 word accounts of my day. It has been, in all things, quite normal. Bill Oddie popped by this morning to borrow Judy’s Black & Decker Workmate and I’ve agreed to nip to see Jeremy and pick up the manuscript to his latest collection of essays. As usual, I’m proofreading it for him and he has got to the point where he trusts my eyes above all other.

What I thought I would do today is spend some time completing a job that has been long delayed. Reading back over some recent comments, it occurred to me that the battlelines aren't clearly drawn in the world of showbiz. You might think that in a world as friendly as light entertainment, I’m here to sing the praises of all men and woman who labour under the weight of talent. And you’d be wrong. An Oddie is quite different to a Cowell. A Clarkson is very unlike an Osbourne.

With this in mind, I’ve decided to produce my official list of celebrities. This will firmly establish for all of you reading my blog, who is on the side of Madeley and who isn’t. As you can see, there are a few surprises. The Osbourne’s remain a divided family. While we can, without fear of contradicting ourselves, declare Sharon and Jack as undesirables, it’s hard to be negative to a man so monumentally insane as Ozzie. Nor can we overlook Kelly’s work in bringing peace to Rwanda. You can also see that we’re still faced with the problem of a waxing James Blunt. His appearance on 'Top Gear' proving that he’s essentially one of the good guys but, unfortunately, he is still insists on opening his mouth and singing. Until this issue is resolved, he has to remain floating at the foot of our list.

And On The Seventh Day, Madeley Rests...

Or he does once he’s done that thing that all bloggers do when wanting to fill space on a Sunday: post the oddest search engine queries that brought visitors to the site. I’ve only just got around to looking at the results for last month and, as usual, we've got a fairly mixed bag.

1. ‘Creep Richard Madeley’

We have a new number one. I don't see why this should be so popular this month but I’m now going to be looking over my shoulder in case somebody has been working out the best way to creep up on me.

2. ‘I hate Richard Madeley’

The long standing number one drops to number two, which is indicative of the thawing in the relationship between the British people and the Madeley man mountain. My Appreciation Society is having an effect, as I always knew it would.

3. ‘Richard Madeley a terrorist with AK47’

In some quarters, the suspicions still continue. Can't a man attend a terrorist training camp without being labeled a terrorist?

4. ‘two rectums’

Why ‘two rectums’ remains so popular it is still beyond me. I do know that anybody wanting to search for ‘two rectums’ on Google will come here before they go anywhere. This is the duel rectum center of the world wide web. The way I calculate it, if you’re reading this, you’ve probably got two rectums. If so, I want to hear from you. There’s an award winning documentary in this or my name's not Madeley.

5. ‘Ray Mears hedgehogs’

At some stage every website gets a visitor looking for Ray Mears and hedgehogs. There’s simply nothing better than a hedgehog cooked in mud and wrapped in tin foil. The only problem with hedgehog meat is that’s a natural laxative. Beware. Especially those of you with two rectums.

6. ‘Richard Madeley is a cute nice guy’

Speaks for itself. I’m cute and I’ve a healthy respect for all men and women, even if they do have two rectums.

7. ‘deadly beast drawer’

English students at some American universities are already studying my 200 line mock heroic epistle on Jeremy Paxman’s sock drawer as part of the degrees in English Literature. People searching for the text of the poem accounts for this result.

8. ‘penis cactus gift barrel shaped order’

We do actually have a biscuit barrel that’s shaped like a cactus and, as I believe I've recounted on many occasions, I once got my penis trapped in it. I'm sure the story is in my archive if you can be bothered looking.

9. ‘Richard Madeley commando’

It’s the commando I go when I go commando. It's Madeley sans underpants.

10. ‘Jeremy Clarkson eats chaffinch’

The cruel persecution of Jeremy Clarkson is obviously continuing. If people want evidence of the time he ate chaffinch then they need only come around and ask Judy to show them our photo album. I’ve lost the number of times he’s eaten chaffinch at this house. I think he particularly likes the way I prepare them over a hot charcoal as I was taught by Ray Mears.

11. ‘Richard Madeley in a lift’

Mysterious. I’ve been in lifts but, as far as I can recall, nothing of significance has ever happened in a lift. I gone up many times but I've never gone down. I normally use the stairs.

12. ‘person with two rectums’

See my answer to number 4 or seek medical help.

13. ‘Mickey Rooney beard photo’

There’s no picture of Mickey Rooney with a beard here. There is, however, a picture of him smoking a pipe. I would hazard a guess and say it’s the best photo of Mickey Rooney smoking a pipe that’s available in the public domain.

14 ‘Judy plums’

I'm only too happy to clear up this little urban myth. No, she doesn’t have plums. Never had, has, or will. Unless they’re mine, in which case she’s threatened to have them turned into ear rings.

15. ‘what fine would you have to pay for smuggling fur for ocelots?’

The most intriguing result. After a little research I can now confirm that it’s a $20,000 dollar fine and up to twelve years in prison. Madeley’s rule of thumb when smuggling ocelot fur: don’t get caught. Here endeth the lesson.

Strictly Dreamy

(Left to right: Bill, Judy, Myself, Selena, Stephen.)
Click picture to see Judy's legs in more detail

Barely had the glue begun to dry on Crown Prince Willem Hendrik’s elbow than the phone suffered a harmonic seizure. In my panic, the poor man’s arm fell off and attached itself to my thumb which I then had to shake manically in order to free it from the monarch’s grasp, heavy as it was with plastic cement. Only then could I reach for the receiver.

‘Yes,’ I snapped.

‘Oh, hi… Richard? This is Clare at the BBC. I’ve not caught you at a bad moment have I?’

‘You had,’ I replied. ‘I was enjoying a quiet five minutes in my office, putting the finishing touches to my latest Airfix model from the Great Dutch Potentates Collection.’

‘Well, if you’ve got time, I need a word. I’m afraid we’ve made a bit of a botch with your booking.’

I groaned as I deposed an armless Crown Prince by sticking him beneath my desk. There were more important matters at hand, if not to elbow. Judy and I had been asked to make a guest appearance on the BBC’s hit show, Pro-Celebrity Strictly Come Dancing At Christmas. Our booking has been long standing and we’d already devoted weeks of preparation to our dance routine. With only hours left before the big night, complications were the last thing I needed.

‘Could you be a dear?’ asked the producer. ‘I need you to check your contract. Did we say that your team should have “three men and one woman”?’

My hand reached for the file we use of future bookings and extracted the contract embossed with the BBC crest, a unflappable gannet with gremlin passant.

‘You did,’ I confirmed. ‘And we wrote back to say that our team will comprise Bill Oddie, Stephen Fry, Judy and myself. So that’s two men, one woman, and an Oddie.’

‘That’s just it,’ said the producer. ‘It should have been two women.’

‘So you’re saying that our team is a woman short?’ I bit my lip. This was not the first time I’ve been left to rue the inefficiency of the BBC. They once promised me a James May but delivered a Keith Chegwin.

‘We can provide an extra dancer without a problem,’ said Clare the Producer. ‘We’ve had Kerry Katona training in case of an emergency like this. She can join up with you at a moment’s notice.’

‘I’m sure she can,’ I replied, ‘but I don’t think that sounds very safe.’

‘Safe?’ asked the producer.

‘Well, isn’t it dangerous asking four people to dance over my dead body?’ I snapped.

‘I see,’ came the reply. ‘So am I to take it that you have a problem with Kerry?’

‘I have more than a single problem with Kerry. She’s epitomises what’s wrong with this country. Publishers sell her novels though she doesn’t write them, supermarkets use her to promote a healthy lifestyle she doesn’t herself follow, and her personal life is like some rogue state that’s just gone nuclear. To say that I don’t fancy flinging my hips around a dance floor with her would be something of an understatement. I’d prefer to dance the cha-cha-cha with North Korea.’ I rubbed a hand across my immaculate brow. ‘Look, leave it with me,’ I said. ‘I’m sure I can find some able bodied woman with an immaculate sense of rhythm.’

‘Well, if you say so, Richard, but in my experience, ballroom dancers are hard to find.’

I came off the phone and uttered Clarkson’s favourite expletive. This was the last thing I needed. The Christmas work has begun to come in thick and fast and I could see that I wouldn’t even get chance to watch myself on Have I Got New For You? I went to find Judy who was busy swimming lengths in our indoor heated pool.

‘Cock up on the Pro-Celebrity Stricture Come Dancing Christmas Special front,’ I said. ‘We’re a woman light.’

Judy trod water as she cleared out an ear that had become waterlogged. ‘Did you just say we’re a Norman light?’

‘I said a woman. And not just any woman. A woman who knows the foxtrot inside out.’

‘We’ve been taking months of secret lessons to get us up to speed,’ said Judy. ‘Who could we possibly ask? We don’t even know anybody called Norman.’

Poor Judy. Her inner ear is such a weakness. She has large earholes, you see, and her lobes also have a natural tendency to attract water. When she’s been swimming, we’re lucky if her hearing is back to normal within a week of her drying out. I went back to the office and rang Oddie.

‘Simple,’ said Bill. ‘Katie will do it.’

‘Katie?’

‘Kate Humble. We present "Autumnwatch" together. Lovely girl. She has an eye for a fine badger.’

‘That’s well and good,’ I replied, ‘but can she dance?’

‘Not a step,’ laughed Bill, ‘but there’s no better woman when you need to identify the call of the screech owl.’

I hung up, leaving Oddie with a promise to ask Katie if we couldn’t find a better alternative. All things considered, if it got that bad, I’d have even consider a screech owl.

‘Stephen?’ I said moments later after the speed dial had finished speeding through his forty seven digit phone number. He’s not so much ex-directory as triple-ex directory. There’s nothing that Stephen appreciates more than his privacy.

‘Ay, ’tis I, Fry, on my iPhone, currently practising my foxtrot for Pro-Celebrity Strictly Come Dancing’s Christmas Special.’

‘Odd that you should mention it,’ I said. ‘’Tis I, Richard, one Norman light for our team.’

‘Did you say a “Norman”?’

‘A woman. A woman,’ I cried. ‘What’s wrong with people today?’

‘A woman. I see… And is that just one woman we're short?’ he asked, apparently unfazed by the problem.

‘You make it sound like it’s a triviality. We need a woman with immaculate timing and an encyclopedic knowledge of contemporary ballroom dancing. This is a woman who has to dance on national TV with Bill Oddie. She has to be good.’

‘Simple,’ he said. ‘Ask Selena Dreamy.’

I was astonished at how the man’s mind works. I’ve said it before but it’s just not connected like those of normal human beings. He’s definitely got the full spec at Mankind 2.0 standards.

‘Of course,’ he continued. ‘When she came to see the mango tree growing in my conservatory, Selena demonstrated a quite admirable set of pins on her. Never has a woman been more blessed by the gods of the rhumba, if not the paso doble, cotillion, two step, and the bunny hug.’

‘Do you know her number?’ I asked, having long ago concluded that the astonishing blog phenomenon known as Selena was really a pipe smoking taxidermist from Slough. That she existed in female form was astonishing news.

‘Naturally, I do,’ replied the Great Fry. ‘What is the point of owning an iPhone if one doesn’t have the telephone numbers of the nation at one’s fingertips?’

‘Why indeed?’ I asked as the phone went silent and I heard Stephen’s fingers begin to stroke his iPhone.

An hour later, I returned to the pool. Judy was practising back flips from the diving board. I waited for her to surface before I told her the good news.

‘We’ve got our woman.’

‘I knew you would,’ she smiled. ‘I got thinking about it too. Norman Collier. He’s always good for a laugh.’

I shook my head and returned to Crown Prince Willem Hendrik’s elbow, the one constant in an often confusing world.

The Big Break

It’s odd to find myself talking about my having a ‘big break’ when I’ve already established myself as TV’s most popular talk show host. Yet having conquered an audience to whom the menopause was a vague and distant memory, I’ve always longed to establish myself with a younger crowd for whom the juices have not yet ceased to flow. I’m still a relatively young guy and I like to think that my finger is on the pulse of today’s audience.

My chance arrived this week and the result will be broadcast tonight. I’m actually relieved that the day is here. It means that I can finally tell you all about it. If you check BBC1 this evening at 9PM, you’ll be in for an early Christmas treat. The last episode in the current series of Have I Got News For You has a very special guest presenter.

I’m not saying who it is but I arrived at The London Studios early last night. The production facility sits on the South Bank, an area I know quite well since it was once the home to London Weekend Television where I made many shows in the eighties. It’s now home to the UK’s most successful satirical quiz show.

The two stars of the show were very welcoming, although they’re not what you expect. Ian Hislop isn’t as funny in the flesh as he appears on TV while Paul Merton refuses to speak to anybody before the recording. He spends fifteen minutes kneeling in a corner of his dressing room where he has constructed a small shrine to the Comedy Gods.

‘Best not to bother him,’ said Hislop as he walked me past Merton’s dressing room. ‘He thinks he’s channelling the spirit of Buster Keaton.’

‘I thought Keaton was a silent comedian,’ I replied.

‘Which probably accounts for a lot of things,’ commented a producer who was passing us at the time.

‘Producers,’ cried Hislop after him. ‘What do they know about comedy?’

‘We know that our last laugh wasn’t at the expense of Anthony Eden,’ said another, going the other way.

Hislop took the insults in good spirits. ‘Bastards,’ he muttered darkly as he led me down to the studio.

The host’s seat is possibly one of the most envied chairs in television. All the greats have sat there. Forsyth, Aspel, Corbett, Fry. I adjusted it lower, it having been left from the previous incumbent the week before. Jo Brand hadn't done a bad job hosting the show but I thought that by saving me for last, the producers were doing the right thing; ensuring that regular viewers went away from the series with a proper sense of edgy, topical satire.

Once I'd lowered the chair, I proceeded to spend some time getting myself in the comedy zone. My main job for the evening would be to read jokes from the autocue, but, unknown to the guys, I’d written myself some topical material I knew would go down a storm. My favourite joke was going to be:

"Gordon Brown couldn’t sign the reform treaty in Lisbon with other European leaders. Critics accuse him of staying in London to avoid the embarrassment of being seen giving away all our rights to non-elected officials in Europe. A spokesman for the Prime Minister said ‘Je n'ai aucun commentaire’ from his office in Brussels."

Like a true professional, I'd memorised my own material so I'd be able to slip it in when the moment was right. As it turned out, I'm glad I was on hand to provide additional laughs. The actual recording went well enough but the writers on the show had struggled to fill the autocue with good material. It was a shame since the audience seemed to have an endless amount of affection for me. However, once I began to ad lib, I think I managed to turn the show around. The audience listened in awe as I began to ad lib a rap around the subject of Ed Balls and primary schools. I then managed to get my Gordon Brown joke in, right after the ‘Odd One Out’ round, when I also made a quite cutting remark about Al Gore and tumble-dryers. I just hope they keep it all in the final edit. Other than that, I really can’t say too much in case I spoil the show.

Afterwards, as a way of thanking me, Paul and Ian took me for a meal in a crowded little bistro not far from the studio there on the South Bank.

‘Order what you want,’ said Paul in a loud voice as we took our seats. ‘After all, you’re paying.’

The bistro broke out into spontaneous laughter and then a small round of applause. Paul milked it for all it was worth while Ian sat gloomily with his nose stuck in a menu.

‘You two must get rather jaded after all these years working together,’ I said.

‘Not at all,’ replied Paul as he sat down. ‘I wouldn’t know what to do without Ian. He’s my little bald Judy.’

There was more laughter, more applause, and, from Paul, more standing up and bowing.

‘Does he does this all the time?’ I whispered to Ian.

‘Only when he’s trying to impress people,’ he said.

‘So I should feel honoured?’

Ian shrugged. ‘Put it like this, I’ve not met a person he doesn’t try to impress.’

Paul sat back down.

‘Me and the real Judy have our marriage to keep us fresh,’ I said. ‘There’s much to be said for sleeping in the same bed as your television partner.’

‘We tried that once,’ said Paul, his voice reaching out above our heads to the rest of the diners, now hanging on his every word. ‘I couldn’t put up with his snoring. Although, to be fair, he was funnier than when he’s awake.’

More laughter.

‘Look, cut it out,’ snapped Ian, somewhat petulantly I thought.

‘Oooh,’ went the crowd.

‘It’s like doing pantomime at the Hackney Empire, this is!’ cried Paul to more applause. ‘Richard, here, take these magic beans I’ve purchased from that bald little elf. Let’s plant them and we’ll see what grows.’

‘It’s always the same,’ complained Ian. ‘He can’t switch off.’

‘I can’t help if,’ said Paul. ‘Once you’ve started to channel the comedy greats, you can’t just turn them off like it’s a tap.’

‘They’re still coming through you now?’ I asked.

‘Of course. I can’t stop them.’

‘So who is it now?’

Paul looked pensive for a moment, his eyes losing focus as though he were staring into the middle distance. Then his eyes cleared. ‘Yootha Joyce,’ he said. ‘Earlier on I had Hancock for five minutes.’

‘Yootha Joyce?’ I cried. ‘You’re channelling the star of a mid-seventies situation comedy. And a bad one at that!’

‘George and Mildred was comedy gold,’ protested Paul.

There wasn’t much I could say to that. The meal soon arrived and we ate it in comparative silence. We chatted occasionally about the business and I told them about my big hopes for Dick Justice, coming to ITV this Spring.

When we’d finished the meal, we slipped out onto the South Bank and the two of them started to argue about a taxi. I would have offered them a lift but Paul had started to channel the spirit of Lenny Henry, despite protestations from both Ian and myself that Henry isn’t dead.

‘He’s as good as,’ said Paul. ‘What’s death if it’s not doing a one man show at the Dudley Town Hall?’

I suppose he had a point. After saying my goodbyes to Ian, Paul, Yootha, and Lenny, I walked back to my car reflecting on what had been an odd evening.

Catch the show tonight and I’m sure you’ll all agree.

Wind Up The Willows

The moment Ronnie Corbett refused to don the frog suit, I knew we were in trouble.

The usual suspects had gathered around my kitchen table, but even to the older heads among us, the night had been a sobering lesson, teaching us that the human spirit is never so foolish than when it’s soaped up on coffee. Clarkson had not stopped pouring the Nicaraguan blend all afternoon. By the time we’d cranked the hours forward to six o’clock, the caffeine fizzed whenever it met serotonin in our systems. You have to believe me when I tell you that there’s nothing so excitable as Bill Oddie when he’s tapped up on the roasted beans of Central America.

‘It will be a blast!’ said Clarkson. His bottom was perched on the kitchen work surface, allowing the rest of us an unrestricted view of the fist tight crotch with enlarged knuckles. ‘Come on, guys. What do you say? Where’s that British spirit? Where’s that resilience to see a good job done?’

‘If he mentions Brunel one more time I believe I’ll try to swallow my tongue,’ muttered Stephen.

‘Isambard Kingdom Brunel wouldn’t have sat around waiting to make a decision. He’d have had this job done hours ago. Come on? Who’s with me?’

There then followed much furrowing of brows as we began to comprehend the scale of J.C’s proposal.

In the end, Fry had been the first to declare his willingness to go along with the plan. ‘If only to hasten myself on to my doom,’ he said. Palin had deliberated long and hard before announcing that he too was in. Oddie had already volunteered an hour earlier. Once he’s on coffee, he’s up for anything. He’d announced his decision with a dozen toots on his plastic duck call.

The only real doubt among us was Corbett. I could see that I would need to set him a good example.

‘As for me,’ I said, placing my hand on Ronnie’s shoulder, ‘I’m always happy to put my weight behind the Clarkson bandwagon. After all, it is for charity. Charity makes big men out of us all.’

As soon as I said that, Ronnie piped up.

‘You’re so right, Dick…’ he began. ‘I can call you Dick? Ha! Wouldn’t want to be putting my Dickies where they’re not wanted… As the snooker player said the ballerina. No! Actually, the snooker player never said that at all. I was lying for the sake of the joke, you see…’

‘Ronnie?’ asked Jeremy. ‘Are you in?’

‘I’m in! I’m in!’ he said, cradling his own cup of coffee high against his chest. ‘Which reminds me of something I said to my wife on my wedding night…’

Clarkson groaned. ‘Look, guys. I can’t say how good it is that you’ve all agreed to do this. I owe you all one.’

‘I would never say no to a cause so worthy,’ replied Ronnie.

We all stared at him for a few moments longer, waiting for him to continue as we knew he must.

‘No, that’s it,’ he said. ‘I can see when my rambling monologues are not wanted…’ He ran his tongue around his teeth, looked up to the ceiling, and then down at his cup. ‘But, of course, that does remind me of a joke about a one legged man and a mule. No, it does! He generally coped well with his disability but he found it difficult to find his ass. Ha!’

‘Okay,’ said Clarkson with a withering look directed to the smallest man in the room. ‘I’ve got the gear in the back of the car. Unfortunately, I can only take one of you with me and that will have to be Ronnie.’

‘I can always squeeze into the glovebox,’ said Ronnie as though it needed explaining.

‘Quite,’ said Jeremy. ‘Dick? Can you, Mike, and Bill go with Stephen?’

‘It will be a pleasure to drive such men of enviable talent,’ said Fry. ‘And Richard is always welcome too.’

Now it was my turn to groan.

The race up to Biggleswade was surprisingly tight for most of the trip up the A1. While Jeremy had to refuel his jet car every fifteen minutes, Stephen’s encyclopedic knowledge of the roads of Southern England allowed us to keep a steady pace. At the finish line, Clarkson probably nipped in ahead of us because Stephen had slowed to twenty through the tight streets. Jeremy had clearly interpreted this as a sign of weakness and exploited it to the full. He’d made up two miles to come roaring down the street, the wake from a sonic boom busting many a gusset in the window of Dorothy Perkins.

‘That journey might have cost be seven and a half thousand pounds in fuel, but it just shows you that you can’t beat the power of the jet,’ said Clarkson once the rest of us had bundled out of Stephen’s cab.

‘Is this it?’ asked Bill, looking at the rather drab stage set in the middle of the town square.

‘This is, as you say, “it”,’ said Jeremy. ‘Come on. The kids will be here soon.’

‘Where’s Ronnie?’ I asked, realising that our numbers were light by one Corbett.

‘Oh hell,’ said Jeremy. ‘I’ve left him in the luggage compartment.’

‘I saw my life flash before my eyes,’ said Ronnie as he emerged from the car a minute later. ‘And I never realised I was so short!’

The plan was elegant in its simplicity. Because of her involvement in high level diplomacy between the UK and Russian governments, Kelly Osbourne had been forced to cancel her plans to light Biggleswade’s Christmas lights. Jeremy had stepped in and promised that we’d all be on hand to put on a scene from his favourite book, The Wind in the Willows. Children from the local behavioural treatment centre were due to come along at eight and we would entertain them until nine o’clock when the town’s Christmas lights would be lit, accompanied by a firework display. The fact that we hadn’t rehearsed a thing didn’t seem to discourage Jeremy.

‘Grab your costumes,’ he said, ‘and just remember that this is for children who won’t actually have read the book. It means we don’t have to be word perfect with the original source material.’

‘You want us to make it up as we go along?’ I asked.

‘That’s generally the idea,’ he smiled. ‘Now Stephen, it’s probably best if you play Mole. Dick, of course you’re Ratty. Bill, sorry to typecast you like this, but could you be Mr. Badger? Ronnie, you are born to play Mr. Toad. That just leaves Michael and myself who are going to be weasels.’

‘Typical,’ said Michael. ‘I came all this way to play a weasel. This is “A Fish Called Wanda” all over again.’

‘You’re comparing this great collection of British talent to a small budget film?’ scolded Oddie and he helped Jeremy pull the basket of costumes from the back of the rocket car.

Michael flipped the lid and dragged out the first costume.

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said as he examined something green and rubbery. ‘We did have a budget on “Wanda”.’

‘That’s Mr. Toad’s frog suit,’ said Jeremy, snatching the rubbers from Palin’s hands and holding them up.

‘I’m not wearing that,’ said Ronnie. ‘Where are my tweeds? He’s the lord of the manor for goodness sake. Mr. Toad always wears tweeds!’

‘Not in this production he doesn’t,’ said Jeremy. ‘And I don’t think the kids will notice. A green frog suit is as good as I could come up with at short notice. And you’ll look the part once you put the snorkel on.’

‘A snorkel?’

‘It was the best I could do for goggles. Look, Ronnie, this is for charity.’

Ronnie fell silent, as did we all except Bill who was wrapped in a large fur coat and was getting into his role by sniffing around a nearby hedge.

‘Look, Jeremy,’ I said, ‘can’t Ronnie be a weasel? You could play Mr. Toad.’

‘He looks nothing like a weasel. He’s too short.’

‘That is a fair observation,’ said Stephen, who had been silent throughout the disagreement. ‘In which case, I could play a weasel, Ronnie could play Mr. Mole, and Michael would then play Mr. Toad. It would, I believe, solve all our problems.’

As ever, Stephen had done it. The man has a brain the size of a subcontinent. And one of the bigger ones at that.

Soon, suits were on, places on the stage were taken, and we ran through a quick rehearsal before the children arrived. Although ours was one of the oddest stage adaptations of ‘The Wind in the Willows’, I thought it had some charm. Stephen managed to ad lib his way through the entire thing, improving on the original in everything he did. Oddie paused at the half-way point to lecture the children on the reproductive habits of badgers, complete with mime. Michael played Mr. Toad admirably and his inclusion of some fish slapping seemed to delight the kids. As for my Ratty, it probably stole the show. I managed to get Stephen’s weasel to sit down for five minutes and we discussed the problems in his personal life and I recounted the time I’d had my vasectomy. The whole thing was wrapped up perfectly by Ronnie who ended the night with a long rambling story about his life with Mrs. Mole and a particularly funny story about his wedding night whose punchline was ‘I won’t mind but you better ask the stoat.’

What more is there to say? Christmas lights were lit and then fireworks played their part. The children were herded back to their behavioural unit and we packed up for the evening.

Later that night, after I’d got home, I was stood looking out over the garden when Judy came up behind me.

‘Penny for your thoughts,’ she offered.

‘I was just thinking how lucky I am not to be a rat,’ I said. ‘Could you imagine what it’s like, living and foraging among rubbish. It makes me so very glad to be human.’

‘I thought that would be obvious,’ she said.

‘Not to all of us,’ I said and put my arm around her as we stood and watched a large grey badger frolicking on the back lawn and only occasionally standing on his hind legs and looking remotely like Oddie, that dear and charming man.

The Official Richard Madeley Appreciation Society Christmas Card

With just a couple of weeks to go and since most of you will soon be going off with families and loved ones, I thought it best to send you my official Christmas card. Getting it early means that you still have time to use it as a desktop or have it printed on a t-shirt and worn to every Christmas party. And if you find yourself feeling lonely this Christmas (and let’s face it, who doesn’t?), you can always look at this picture and know that you have at least one friend in the world who won’t desert you.

Which is more than be said about Dr. Raj, the cheap brain hustling quack. Going away ‘to sunnier climes’ for Christmas. And just when we all need his help the most. The only trained trauma councillor I know and he’ll be thousands of miles away when the turkey hits the Fry. As for me, I’m stuck on blogging duties. I’ll still be here, working my fingers to the bone. Though, I know I shouldn’t, the alternative is ‘Christmas with Cilla’. And no, that’s the not the name of a TV special. I wish it were. At least I’d be able to leave the room. This Christmas we’re having everybody over. Des O’Connor, Esther Rantzen, Alan Titchmarsh... And, of course, Cilla. The only benefit of having Cilla Black in the house is that we have trained singer who frighten off any carol singers. Still, I’ll have Oddie and Fry here to keep me sane.

How did I get onto talking about this? Oh yes… The Christmas card. Well, here it is. Please do the sensible thing and spread it around. The more people see it, the more festive cheer we spread between us.

Richard & Judy's Christmas Books 2007

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

Stir Crazy

It was past midnight and I was as cold and lonely as the proverbial pickle left in Russell Grant’s lunchbox. A member of the local constabulary had his hand on my shoulder as he led me on a never ending walk down to the cells. Along the frozen galleries and corridors, I could hear a radio playing the echoing strains of the second movement from Schubert’s Piano Trio in E flat Major. A slow moving piece, it was poignant, perhaps, but with a certain, resigned tempo that made the injustice seem all the greater.

I’m no stranger to persecution. It’s true of all great men at all times of history. As I always say: if Galileo couldn’t escape his fate with hemlock, what chance have I? Yet never could I have imagined fate being so cruel as to put me away for allegedly damaging the thing most precious to me.

The police had arrived around nine o’clock, responding to a complaint from as yet unidentified reader of this blog who had reported me for kicking Judy. The shock of the allegation couldn’t have come at a more unexpected hour. When the police arrived, I’d been spread out on the living room floor with Bill Oddie. Our attempts to erect a new flat-packed bedside cabinet that Mrs. M. had bought from IKEA had been thwarted when Bill, being Bill, lost one of the half-inch cross-headed self-tapping screws. We’d been crawling nose to shag (or, indeed, beard to shag) in a desperate attempt to find it. That’s the moment the police chose to swoop and when the scene descended into mild farce.

Bill answered the door and immediately screamed a warning that I should heel it out the back. As he began to struggle with the officer, I was on my pins heading south. Unfortunately, I ran straight into a second policeman loitering behind the recycling bins parked outside the back door.

Any struggle was a formality. I was soon escorted back into the house where I found Bill in handcuffs. I managed to talk the officers into letting him go before I was led from the house. It was the least I could do for the little fellow. In return, Bill promised to contact Judy, who was spending another night in London with Denise. Only I knew that, try as he might, Bill would never get through to her. Judy turns off her mobile when she’s in the theatre and nothing could interrupt her watching Equus for the twentieth time.

And so, with Bill Oddie left behind, rallying my supporters, I’d been taken to the local police station where I’d been read my rights and had begun my long march to the cell.

‘Let’s see what we’ve got in box number two, shall we?’ said the officer, stopping before a grey door. He unlocked it and pushed me in. ‘Have a bit of we stay and you pay,’ he added with a grim laugh.

The door slammed shut behind me and I found myself staring at a heavily tattooed bench of flesh which slowly began to sit up.

‘I was dreaming about soup,’ said the bench.

‘Any particular flavour?’ I asked.

‘Scotch broth,’ it replied, ‘but it could have been mushroom.’

My eyes adjusted to the light and I could make out a human form in the place of the bench. It was big man, well over six feet, lying on a cramped cot.

‘So sorry to have woken you,’ I said.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, yawned, and then slowly extended an arm out towards me.

‘The name’s Dave,’ said Dave. His hand completely wrapped my own and it was then that he reminded me of a slightly more tattooed version of Terry Scott, only a good three feet taller and with at least two more pierced eyebrows.

‘Nice to meet you Dave,’ I replied. ‘I’m Richard. Richard Madeley.’ He released my hand and gave a long stretch. I skirted around his legs and sat heavily down on the sponge cot on the other side of the cell. Dave smiled and lay back down. Then, as if to prove how compassionate he was, he allowed gas to escape from his lower dietary tract. I knew then that I wouldn’t be dreaming about Scotch Broth or mushrooms. They weren’t nearly spicy enough.

After five minutes, he looked at me from beneath his brow, thick with grease and rivets. ‘Hey, ain’t you that bloke from the telly?’ he asked. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Madeley,’ I told him again. ‘Richard Madeley.’

‘Ay, that’s him,’ he replied. ‘Ain’t you him?’

‘I am,’ I said.

‘Well I never. And what they got you for?’

‘I’ve been arrested for illegally poking my wife with my big toe.’

‘Yea? Well, ain’t that something? You do that programme with your missus, don’t ya? I sometimes watch it if I’m not busy.’

‘Busy?’ I asked, naively. ‘And what do you do for a living?’

‘Oh,’ smiled Dave, ‘nothing too heavy. I just rob stuff.’

‘You’re a thief? Fantastic! We should get you on the show.’

‘Sometimes I just handle,’ he said, a little shyly. ‘That’s what they’ve got me for this time. Handling.’

‘And what were you handling? I hope it wasn’t toes or you could be in serious trouble under European law.’

‘Not toes,’ said Dave. ‘Just handguns. Glock automatics, Smith & Wesson 9 millimetres. I just do a little trade in them for the local families.’

I shifted down on my cot and tried to close my eyes. Knowing that you’re in a confined space with a man who runs a business supplying small firearms to gangsters tends to restrict conversation. It felt a bit like working on literacy schemes with the government.

We lay like that in the darkness of the cell a good hour before one of us spoke again.

‘So how do you come up with your ideas for your show?’ asked Dave, sometime around one o’clock.

‘With great difficulty,’ I answered, rolling from the side of the bed that stank of urine to the side that carried the aroma of vomit. ‘Ideas are the hardest things to come up with.’

He grunted in the darkness. ‘I have some fantastic ideas for TV shows,’ he said.

I opened my eyes. Sitting in the slight murk of the cell, Dave had the composure of a church gargoyl. ‘I really don’t think it’s as easy as that,’ I told him. ‘For instance, my new series is called “Dick Justice”. It’s taken months of planning just to get the first episode worked out. I’m going undercover to smash the gangs flooding Blackpool’s Golden Mile with poor quality rubber novelty items from China.’

‘I don’t mean making shows,’ said Dave. ‘I mean coming up with ideas for new shows. I’ve got hundreds of them.’

I snorted a scoff and I heard the other cot squeal. Dave was sitting upright, his eyes like menacing stars set against the dark graffitied night of the cell wall, with the constellation of ‘Nark off, Coppers’ rising.

‘You don’t think I can come up with good shows?’ he asked.

‘I’m not saying that,’ I replied, fear overriding my bravado. ‘I’m just saying that original programming ideas aren’t that easy to come by.’

‘Yea, well what about “Felicity’s Fingers”? It’s my take on the oldest profession in the world.’

‘Prostitution?’

‘That’s the second oldest. I’m talking about gardening. Each week we give two teams a chance to race Felicity Kendal to plant a herbaceous border.’

‘Not bad,’ I said.

‘Oh, if you like that, I’ve got lots more. “Earlobe Alley”, “Sugar Rush”, “The Parsnip Game”, “Roll Over, Beets in the Oven”, “Pro-Celebrity Duck Hunt”, “It’s Purple, Doctor!”

I had to stop him. ‘And what exactly is that last one about?’

‘You mean “It’s Purple, Doctor!”? That would be TV’s first surgical quiz game. Doctors compete to diagnose real illnesses from descriptions of the symptoms presented by the nation’s top comedy talent. Think how funny it could be. We’d might have a man with one leg on one side of a screen and Phil Jupitus would describe how he keeps falling over. It would be hosted by Jimmy Carr.’

I have to admit I did wonder if had something there. I’ve pitched lesser ideas to ITV and won commissions on most of them.

It was the thought of making quality programming that probably helped me to sleep. As Dave began to run through the complicated rules of ‘Hey! That’s My Sausage!’ I was overcome with fatigue and drifted into an almost blissful sleep. I awoke at eight o’clock the next morning to a palatable change in the air. The stale cell felt optimistic as I listened to the soft yet lively humming of somebody outside the door. When it swung open, I was not at all surprised to see the man standing there.

‘As you no doubt expected, ’tis I, Fry, having negotiated your release,’ said Stephen. ‘You are free to go as the actress said to the generously blessed country swain she’d helped release from the threshing machine.’

‘How on earth?’ I gasped, sitting up on my cot. Dave was still sleeping and I thought it best not to wake him.

Fifteen minutes later, my shoelaces restored to my shoes, I was walking beside Stephen on the way to his black London taxi. ‘You are indeed fortunate, Richard,’ said the Great Man. ‘You are lucky that I crammed years of legal study into a few weeks last summer to pass my bar exams. There are very few people in showbiz who are fully trained lawyers.’

‘I can’t thank you enough,’ I said as I slid into the back of the cab. ‘I didn’t even know you’re a lawyer.’

‘Among many things,’ said Fry, settling himself in the driver’s seat. ‘My practise is small but I like to think that my clients are blessed by the best legal mind this side of Mr. Rumpole.’

‘I’m sure they are,’ I replied and there began the conversation that would occupy us all the way back to the house. I had plenty of talk to get out, explaining to Stephen about my idea for a quality quiz involving the comic descriptions of serious surgical conditions.

‘“Lance My Boil!” sounds like a fine idea for a comedy quiz,’ said Stephen. ‘Put me down as the host and co-producer.’

‘Consider it done,’ I said as we turned the corner of the road and I saw the house in the distance. It did my heart endless good to see all the neighbours waiting to greet me, along with a few cherished friends. Oddie, Plain, Corbett, and even Paxman had come down to welcome me back. But the greatest satisfaction was seeing Judy standing there, tears running down her face.

‘I thought you’d be gone years,’ she said, sobbing into her blouse. ‘Yet it was only one night. It as only one night!’

‘One night indeed,’ I told her as I took her into my arms. She seemed to have stiff with worry. ‘One long and terrifying night for you, Judy, but for me, I saw a night of great things for the future of light entertainment.’ I held her at arms length and gazed into her eyes. ‘I’m going to restore us back to the top of the television ladder. Now what do you know about non-infectious diseases?’

So A Toe's An Offensive Weapon? Well The French Think So...

In the bad old days, prison showers were communal, cold, and full of men called Dennis who were not there for a quick soap, sponge, and sharing in the singing of a cheerful sea shanty. Thankfully those days are long gone. Prison showers now have hot water and nobody expects you to sing. There are still plenty of men called Dennis, though. Sometimes they’re even called Sergi.

You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this. Well, I’m here because my good friend Dick Madeley is in the clink. That’s right: Dick’s doing porridge with all the Armenian sex racketeers and old folk who’ve accidentally forgotten to mention that their husband wasn’t dead when they claimed on his life insurance policy. It's typical of British justice. Even now, as Dick tries to argue himself out of trouble, hoodies are probably turning his house over, stealing his clothes, and searching the garage for Judy’s home made wine. So, if you see a gang of thugs out of their brains on cabbage wine and wearing light cream casuals, you'll have your men.

Or girls. I mustn’t be sexist about this. They can also be gormless, pot smoking donkeys wearing more chains than a P&O ferry. Though if you ask my opinion, they should all dragged off to The Isle of Man. First prize to the first one to swim back to England. We'll tell them that they’ll win a Vauxhall Corsair with nineteen inch rims and a crate of White Lightening in the back, but if we’re really lucky, the tides will carry them off to Newfoundland where they’ll be culled and turned into handbags for rich Americans.

Still, I’m not here to talk about how I’d reform the judicial system in this country, though God knows that I could. I’m here to talk about toes. If, like me, you have ten of them, you might just be wondering what’s the problem. Well it seems the French don’t like our British toes. It doesn’t matter to them that they’re the toes of Churchill, Drake, and Sir Roger Moore. They want us to have toes like Alain Delon and that good looking woman in the Renault ads. According to them, British toes are dangerous. I know. Shocking!

Poor Richard had barely finishing blogging last night when there came a knock on his door. It was Officer Plod having taken the EU shilling, or whatever passes for a shilling these days. Probably a coat button with Michel Legrand’s face on it. Anyway, it seems that a man’s not even allowed to wake up his wife up by giving her a small prod with his toe. Seems Mr. Plod doesn’t do prods. The British big toe has now been reclassified by the bureaucrats in Brussels. That’s right: Richard’s toe is now a deadly weapon! There’d be more danger if he’d gone at Judy with half a pound of Normandy camembert and a bottle of cheap French red.

While the lawyers argue him out of his mess, I’m here to fill in for him on his blog. I thought I’d say something about this ridiculous situation we’ve got ourselves into. I mean, isn’t it as obvious as the nose on Gerard Depardieu’s face that French rules are written for Frenchmen? British toes are a totally different shape. They’re suited to the rolling green hills of Shakespeare’s country and the hard battered canyons across which men like Brunel dropped their iron bridges. They’re not the result of spending our lives wearing soft canvas shoes while we sit on the banks of the Seine, doing nothing but sipping coffee and discussing free will with a knickerless Béatrice Dalle on a push bike.

Yet that’s the problem with the European mind. They just don’t understand the British. They’re fine when they want to discuss things that don’t matter like whether God is dead or not. Personally, I don’t really care, unless I was mentioned in the will. The French can’t understand us why we Brits want to do something with a purpose. Like go to war or invent the jet engine.

Some years ago, I was driving through France in an old World War 2 Sherman tank. It was part of the celebrations commemorating the Allied Victory. As you’ll know, there’s no better way of reminding the French of the debt they owe us than by driving a thirty tonne tank down the road and ripping up their tarmac. We were going through a small village, just outside Paris, when the mayor came out to meet us. I say meet but he was waving his fists. I had to make a quick decision. Either mow him down with our 30 millimetre machine gun or go out and see what he wanted. A lesser man might have taken the machine gun approach, only I understand the French mind. They use their fists like we use flags with the Queen’s face on them. They don’t intend to look so aggressive. If you don’t believe me, tell me the name of the last world heavyweight boxing champion to come out of France. Precisely.

I climbed out of the tank and had a word with the mayor who seems a little upset by the slight three foot trench we’d dug along the main road running through his town. I explained to him that it wasn’t the fault of the tank but of dodgy road laying policy of the post-War French government and that if they’d employed Mr. Balfour and Mr. Beatty they’d have had no such problem. I then gave him Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s business card and advised him to ring him and get a quote. And that’s when the mayor kicked me in the shin.

First thing he thought: kick the tall English guy in the shins. It’s how they think, you see? To them, it’s not the fists but the toes that are their weapons of choice. To your average Englishman, toes are merely entertainment for your fingers after you’ve had a good walk through a newly ploughed field. As some great Greek person in a dress first put it: pick your toes, not war. Anyway, that’s what I’d told Dick. And that’s what I’m telling you all now. If you ever go to France, don’t go waving your toes around.

You’ll probably get nicked. And you don’t want that. There are even more men called Dennis in French prisons. And sometimes they’re called Pierre.

© Jeremy Clarkson, 2007.

The Shirt Off My Back

On most mornings, I wake up fearing criminal prosecution. On what charge, I’m really not sure. But I do know the source of these cold sweats. It’s the same thing that causes my heart to murmur and my intestines to sing baritone. The worry comes from my statistics. I’ve noticed that lawyers are now keeping an eye on this blog.

Why Stephen Fry might have hired lawyers in St. Louis, Missouri, I have reason to wonder. Perhaps it’s Oddie. More likely Paxman, despite his having a 200 hundred line mock heroic epistle dedicated to him. How many journalists can say the same?

Then again, my homeless friends have not posted in a while. Has The Homeless Chicken taken offence and decided to have the shirt off my back? Perhaps it’s J.W.H. Madeley, the famous herring magnate. He too has been out of contact for a while, despite my authoring his official biography. Has he set his lawyers the task of reclaiming the Madeley fortune in order to fund another plundering of the Icelandic herring stock?

Closer to home, one must wonder about my fellow bloggers. Has Ms. Baroque decided to prosecute for the sake of all true poets? Did Chip Dale come out of his gloom and decided to make his fortune by suing me? Have I upset Nige by revealing to the world that he’s really Bill Oddie? Then again, I went and told you all about Elberry’s troublesome digestion and his need for stool softener. After spilling the beans about his beans (excuse the image), might he have decided to come after me for deformation of character?

Bryan Appleyard is a busy man but is he too busy to sue? Then there’s the mysterious Selena Dreamy. Could she be a Mata Hari, meant to entice me with her peerless wit before revealing herself to be the legal representative of Jordan’s left nipple, about which I have had only bad things to say?

David Dickinson’s groin has become something of a joke in these parts but when you’ve got parts like David Dickinson, you wouldn't think it a joking matter. Lawyers must be informed. But lawyers in St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States? It makes me wonder who I can have offended of such international acclaim. Could it be one of my many wives from my polygamous marriages? Could it be PETA out to get me for promoting the wearing of ocelot hats?

Whatever the reason, the lawyers in St. Louis, Missouri are apparently keeping close tabs on me. I make this appeal directly to them: please don’t sue me! I’m a poor man with only the clothes on my back. Would you really want to leave Judy without a home?

[Update]

What do you mean you’re working for Judy?

On The Transvestites and Squirrels of Toddington's Service Station

‘Lean, muscular and brawny!’

Four words and an outdoor life beckoned.

‘I don’t mind you gently nudging me awake,’ said Judy, pushing me towards the back door, ‘but I refuse to have the rest of your blogging friends applauding your misogynism. Let’s see how lean, muscular and brawny you feel after a night in the garden shed.’

‘I didn’t so much kick,’ I said, holding onto the sleeping bag she’d forced into my hands. ‘I toed! I toed! There’s a huge difference between a leg and a toe.’

‘A difference?’

‘At least a shin,’ I said. ‘Perhaps even a knee if you measure these things in Imperial units.’

‘I don’t take well to being laughed at,’ she sniffed.

I looked out to the garden where it was blowing a gale. I swear I saw David Dickinson’s groin go flying across the lawn before it leapt the fence and took out Ronnie Corbett’s greenhouse a few houses down.

‘I’ll put it right,’ I promised. ‘Let me get back online and I’ll make it all right.’

‘But I don’t want you to respond,’ said Judy. ‘I don’t want you going online ever again. From now on, Richard Madeley, you're no longer a blogger!’

‘Oh but Judy,’ I said. ‘I have to answer. Do you think I could ignore a woman of Selena’s obvious class and breeding?’

Judy’s flush went white. ‘I don’t see why not,’ she replied, cooly. ‘You always ignore Cilla.’

And there you have it, friends. Female wit boiled down, put into a small bottle, given a good shake, and then hurled with the might of the tender elbow to shatter at the bottom of the hole you’ve dug yourself. The aroma of cat has rarely been so strong.

Regular readers will know that it has been a long held wish of mine that visitors to this blog would ask me questions. I began my Appreciation Society in order to answer the many queries I know the world longs to ask a man of my experience. That's why, when Selena posted her list of questions, I knew it was of the utmost importance that I answer them immediately. It’s the reason that Judy discovered me hiding in the airing cupboard, this evening, when I was meant to be sitting in the front room as she talked me through a replay of last night’s boxing match. I’d naturally tried to hide what I was doing but she’d snatched away my laptop and discovered how we'd all been discussing my method of waking her up. It was the reason why I found myself on my way to a night with a man called Innes No. 3.

‘Okay,’ sighed Judy. ‘I’ll forget about this if you tell everybody the truth. You can go on there and blog but only if you tell them the complete truth and you must show contrition about your treatment of me.’

‘I will!’ I promised, as I dropped the sleeping bag and ran back into the house. And I swear that I will answer Selena’s questions with such honesty, it will rock the very foundations of light entertainment in this country. This, I swear, will be a proper reason for Gordon Brown to hold a COBRA meeting.

Selena’s Five Questions:

1.) are Bryan Appleyard and Bill Oddie about to get engaged?

Ah, I see we are to begin with a syllogism. All cats are myopic, my wife is myopic, therefore my wife is a cat... Well, given that I was the first person to reveal to the world that Nige is really Bill Oddie, it makes my job much easier: Nige is really Bill Oddie; Nige and Bryan are already engaged; therefore, Bryan and Bill are to be wed in the spring. I’m sure I speak for everybody and wish them great happiness. We are all eagerly awaiting photos of the church’s interior architecture.

2.) What exactly did you mean when you were overheard saying to Elberry: “I get plenty of it and can supply it for you?”

Stool softener. Nothing more than good old fashioned stool softener. Dr. Raj came on the Richard&Judy show about a year ago to discuss the psychological impact of constipation. He put a word in with the manufacturers of stool softener and, since then, boxes of the stuff have been arriving at the house on the first of every month. Elberry, as you will know if you read his blog, is a man greatly troubled in that department. He often boasts about travelling the country and squatting on the great Civil War battlefields, knowing that his little ‘Elberries’ will appear in auction houses under the label ‘genuine Roundhead musketballs’. I thought it only reasonable to help the poor man out, as indeed I’ll be helping out the nation’s collectors of antique musketballs.

3.) Have you ever been convicted for stalking The Honourable Nigel Havers?

Convicted: no. Caught: yes. It was at the Toddington service station and it was back in the early eighties. I’d followed The Honourable Havers there from the London BBC studios where he’d been filming Blankety Blank. It was years before This Morning and I was working on a documentary for Granada TV about shipments of Bulgarian squirrels being delivered to celebrity flats late at night. The show’s main target was Anthony Andrews but we suspected that Havers was acting as a middleman. I was hot on the trail of this illicit squirrel smuggling operation, hiding behind a rack of fan belts, when the shop assistant caught me. Nigel was attracted to the commotion. He got straight on the blower to Andrews and blew the whole gaff. That very night, Andrews released all the squirrels. Many people in the security services still blame him for causing South Kensington’s ongoing problem with squirrels with a taste for nibbling quality woollen worsted.

4.) Have you ever heard voices urging you to run for post of Vollsachverständiger für Konspirazionstheorie?

A day rarely passes without my hearing them. Luckily, the voices speak a language that my conscious mind doesn’t understand. It’s the reason why I fear learning German. I don’t know what kind of man I might become.

5.) Is it true, to the best of your knowledge, that Jeremy Clarkson was seen out dining with a man wearing a skirt while claiming he was AA Gill. Or that the Daily Mail thought it was so good they wanted it done again? And what do you imagine Stephen Fry thinks about that? I certainly do not trust the manhood of either. In fact, I rang Jeremy and tried to hide my disappointment, but he suggested, against my better knowledge, that he might just appear on this blog. What good is the word of a man with a predilection for skirts?

Good question. It takes me back. AA Gill once made a remark in his Sunday Times column about Charlie Dimmock’s breasts which I thought at the time to be the funniest thing I’d read. I rang him to congratulate him on the fact and I suggested that we meet. He was somewhat reluctant but eventually agreed to join me for a coffee, oddly enough, at the same service station at Toddington where I had been caught stalking Nigel Havers a few years earlier. To get a long story to its nub, Gill arrived wearing a tight blue business jacket and skirt, and I was again caught behind a rack of fan belts, by the same assistant, only this time trying desperately hard to avoid the heavily rouged Gill. The upshot of this is that yes: I do believe that Clarkson was seen dining with a man dressed in a skirt. Not only did The Daily Mail love it, they also hold it responsible for South Kensington’s ongoing problem with squirrels with a taste for nibbling quality woollen worsted.

As to the Great Fry's opinion, I rang Stephen and he was as astute as ever. ‘Ah, ’tis I, Fry, on my iPhone being asked about transvestites in service stations,' he said. 'Luckily, I’m on first name terms with AA Gill, or A as I like to call him, and I can explain the reasons for his occasional cross dressing. He adopts the guise of the female of the species when meeting people he’s too embarrassed to be seen with. You are, Richard, I know, insufferable when it comes to the high esteem in which you hold Jeremy Clarkson, but many men would adopt camouflage made to the highest standards of concealment. Had I the legs for it, I too would adopt the natural cover of the lady. A word to the wise, Richard: when forced to meet Clarkson, dress as a woman. Unless you are a woman, of course, in which case just keep you car engine running. You're not a woman are you Dick? Bless my soul if you are. In fact, bless all our souls...’

There you have it. It only leaves me to comment on men who like to wear skirts, though I have to be very cautious in what I say. I’ve had emailed complaints about describing them as 'whackos' and 'nutjobs'. So, I say, what’s wrong with them that a Bic razor can’t fix?

Speaking of which, Clarkson has yet to forward the piece he’s writing for me. I’ve informed him that we require none of that dross he gives The Sun. I want nothing less than his Sunday Times material. You know, the stuff he writes with the occasional comma. I’ve asked him to give me 1200 words on why men should never ever toe their wives awake.

I think he’s just the man for the job.

Sunday Morning

It’s the seventh day and, as you’re probably aware, Madeley’s day of rest. I hope you haven’t come here expecting a post containing any significant events. This is just about waking up on a Sunday morning in bed next to Judy. Or not next to Judy, as happened to be the case.

I was awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of a Mexican band. I’ve been woken by some pretty odd things in my life: burglars, racing pundits, hairless Armenian car salesmen. But never by a Mexican band, not even during Judy’s marimba period. It’s why I thought it odd enough to get out of bed to investigate. I stuffed my toes into my slippers, wrapped myself in my dressing gown, and emerged on the landing ready to complain about catchy South American rhythms in the small hours. The band was somewhere downstairs and it wasn’t going to be hard to find them. They were sitting in the living room, the light of our huge TV creating a false dawn.

My body woke up a little more as I took in the scene. Judy was sitting on the sofa with her trombone in her hands. In the other chairs were Denise Robertson with a tupperware tub and Judith Chalmers playing castanets made from a couple of spoons.

‘What the hell is going on?’ I asked.

The three women looked at me and then burst into laughter.

Then Denise began to smack her makeshift drum. ‘There’s only one Ricky Hatton!’ she sang as Judy accompanied her on the brass, Judy on the tablespoons. ‘There’s only one Ricky Hatton! One Ricky Hatton!’

‘Ah,’ I said, looking up at the screen at where the old man in the Stella Artois had shuffled off and we were back in Los Vegas for a Sky Box Office presentation. ‘I forgot that tonight’s the night for the sport of kings. Or, at least, Kings who can afford to cough up fifteen quid for something they should really be getting as part of their subscription package.’

‘I thought horse-racing was the sport of kinds,’ said Judith.

‘I was thinking of the more bloodthirsty kings who are almost tyrants,’ I answered as I watched Sky’s coverage of the big fight continue. ‘So how long is it before our boy arrives to get knocked out?’

‘I didn’t think you wanted to watch it,’ said Judy, taking a rest from her trombone.

‘I don’t. Who’d choose to watch a horrible sport that’s sure to end with the combatants coved in blood? The only way I’d want to watch a man from the North West being beaten to a pulp is if that man were Paul O’Grady. But that’s never going to happen… Never going to happen…’

‘So you’re not a sporting man, then, Richard?’ asked Denise.

‘I wouldn’t say that. I just to prefer to watch my beach volleyball. The worst thing you can say about that is that the ladies sometimes suffer mild sand chafing and the occasional gathering of the bikini between their cheeks.’

‘Sexist pig,’ I thought I heard Denise mutter, though it was hard to tell. Judy had chosen that moment to clear the trombone’s valves with a gust from her lungs.

As the girls launched into another verse and chorus I waved them my goodbye and climbed back up the stairs. I slipped between my sheets and set the ‘Z’ button to repeat. I had a wonderful sleep as, in the room below, three blood crazed women began to call for Mayweather’s blood.

Seven hours later, I was awake again. The same could not be said for my wife, Madame Defarge, nor her twin sisters. The scene in the living room this morning was one of small scale devastation. Judy was sleeping in the middle of the floor while Denise had the sofa and Judith was out in my favourite lounger.

I put toe to wife who woke with a snort.

‘Knock his bloody block off!’ she yelled before shrugged off my slipper and rolled over.

‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘Did he win?’

Judy groaned. It was the only answer I needed. I took off my dressing gown and threw it over my wife who had sank back into a deep sleep. I went to the kitchen and produced a large pot of coffee, a generous stack of toast, before adding them all to a tray with a jar of marmalade. With the newspaper tucked under my arm, I climbed the stairs and went back to bed. It’s from where I’m writing this and this is where I shall stay until the house stops shaking to the sound of Denise Robertson’s snoring.

Boxing matches can be vile, animalistic contests. And what goes on inside the ring can almost be as bad.

The Chimneypots of the Sir John Soane's Museum

I didn't realise it was going to be a gala opening. Stephen had merely told me to ‘endear myself to the casual cause’ but I should have known something was wrong when he turned up dressed like James Bond out for a night of baccarat and berettas.

‘Ah, this?’ said Fry, adjusting his black bow tie. ‘This was just the first thing I saw hanging in the closet.’

‘But how does it make me look? Like a semi-casual dwarf. I’ll be lucky if I get through the day without being called Nick Nack at least once.’

‘Oh, you look fine,’ said Judy, brushing something non-existent from my shoulder. ‘Now, Stephen, take good care of him. Remember, he doesn’t like crowds and don’t let anybody ask him for his opinion about anything. He’s only too likely to give it to them and then it will end up in the papers and we’ll all be in trouble.’

‘Fear not, dear Judy,’ said Stephen, ‘your husband's safe in these hands, already slightly moist at the excitement of a day of chimneypots.’ He turned to me and smiled in the impish way that wins us all over. ‘Shall we go?’

‘I suppose,’ I said. ‘So long as it doesn’t involve exploding underground lairs and our being left marooned on the high sea in a large inflatable dingy with little to do and lots of time in which to do it.’

‘Richard,’ he laughed, ‘you have the imagination of a three year old child. Deary me. Think chimneypots. Chimneypots!’

I didn’t think chimneypots at all. ‘Deary me’ was much closer to the mark. I had reasons to be fearful; reasons that became apparent as Stephen drove me to the Sir John Soane’s Museum.

From the back of Stephen’s black cab, the streets of London seemed more circular then I remembered them. Then I realised that Stephen was using every roundabout between the Madeley estate and the centre of London to demonstrate that the black cab has the tightest turning circle of any car. Or at least I think that’s what he said. I was soon sitting with my head between my knees and wondering why the world had taken on a forty five degree list to my right.

When the journey finally came to an end, I climbed from the cab feeling not a little queasy. Outside the museum, the pavement was banked with photographers and celebrities all there to see the opening of the new exhibition.

‘All these people are here for the chimneypots?’ I asked, still a little confused.

Stephen grabbed my arm as I staggered dizzily into Jordan’s gaping breasts, specially brought out for the occasion.

‘No, Richard, they are here for the publicity surrounding the chimneypots. You know how celebrities are. Do you think Jordan’s breasts care a jot for great art and artists? Jordan's breasts care only about appearing in the newspapers. All these celebrities are the same. They’re not here for the museum but for their own glory, their own self-seeking… You’ll want my good side, sir!’ He was now shouting at a photographer who had jumped out to get a shot of the two of us together. Stephen pulled me to his side as the flash bulbs began to ignite.

‘You’re looking a bit peaky, Judy,’ shouted one of Fleet Street’s finest.

‘Looks like Madeley’s shrinking,’ shouted another as Stephen laid his great paw of a hand on my shoulder.

The first snapper embroidered the quip. ‘He looks like that little fella out of that James Bond film.’

‘Oy, Nick Nack,’ shouted the second. ‘Where’s Judy? You swap her for something taller?’

‘Judy’s at home,’ I replied, the flashlights adding to my slight feeling of nausea. ‘She’s fitting a new toilet seat.’

‘I think that’s enough,’ said Stephen, helping me up the steps to the museum. When we were out of earshot of the press, he lowered his head and whispered. ‘I confess, Richard, I had wondered about Judy’s overalls and the large money wrench in her hands but I didn't like to ask. It's a shame as I had thought to invite her. There was plenty of room in my cab.’

‘You can’t get between Judy and her plumbing,’ I said. ‘I’ve tried it many times and I’ve always failed.’

‘Oh, far be it for me to complain. I glad you’ve finally got around to that seat. I’ve been meaning of mentioning it for some time. Yet one has a reluctance to discuss the matters of the bathroom, even with close friends.’

Stephen, as always, was right. It has been too long and it had been wrong of us to do nothing about it. The seat to the old toilet in the guest’s bathroom was much too close to the water. Anybody using it was likely to incur terrible splashback.

‘Now, now, now,’ murmured Stephen as we breached the inner sanctity of the museum. He was holding hands clasped together as though in prayer. ‘Chimneypots!’

The actual exhibition hall was almost empty. Like you find at most of these celebrity gatherings, the celebrities we’d seen outside had immediately walked out the back door where the cars that had dropped them at the front were waiting to pick them up. Of the few who remained, I recognised Loyd Grossman standing on the other side of the hall, and my old friend John Humphrys who was standing chatting to Boris Johnson. Most of the other visitors were ordinary folk and really not worth mentioning beyond the fact that they all seemed to have an unnatural interest in chimneypots.

They weren’t alone.

‘Do you know what the secret of a good chimneypot is?’ asked Stephen as he bowed down to inspect the first glass case. ‘A good flue. Not for the Victorians these narrow tubes that get clogged up with soot. They were people whose chimneys were like great cathedrals, with flues the size of an underfed child or bigger.’

‘Really?’ I said, looking at what Stephen was looking at and seeing only a brown tube made of pot.

‘And look here, a later period chimney with the typical crenellations of that great chimneypot designer, Sir Toby Perceval of Portobello. And here,’ he said, striding to another. ‘If I’m not mistaken, this is actually a virgin chimneypot that’s never tasted the sweet musk of smoke. It has the distinctive mark of being hand crafted. Marvellous. Simply marvellous.’

He went on like this for an hour. I can’t remember everything he told me about chimneypots but, then again, I’m ashamed to say that, after ten minutes or so, I began to find it all quite interesting. Stephen has a way about him that is sorely wasted in the field of light entertainment. He should have an academic post where he could share his encyclopedic knowledge with those that need it. If there’s every a professorship on chimneypots, I’d nominated Stephen before any other.

When I got home around one o’clock, I found Judy sitting on the downstairs toilet, rocking forwards and back.

‘I think I’ve got it just right,’ she said. ‘I’ve raised it four inches. How were the chimneypots?’

‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ I replied, scratching my head. ‘But they were wonderful! There’s so much you can learn about them. In fact, I was wondering, after I’ve had a bite to eat, if you’d like to go back with me and look at them some more?’

‘Are you quite alright, Richard. You sure you’re not feeling peaky?’

‘No, I’m fine,’ I said, perhaps flushing slightly after a journey home involving ninety three traffic islands. ‘Honestly, Jude, you can’t believe the interesting things that Stephen told me. How they used different types of glaze to protect the pots, and how they had to fire them carefully to stop them cracking… He said if we’re up for it, there’s a special demonstration later today when they’ll be putting smoke through one of the oldest chimneypots in the collection. He’s going back and he said we’re welcome to join him.’

Judy began to rock again on the seat. ‘I think it’s safe to say that any guest using this toilet seat will leave with a dry bottom,’ she said.

I could see that I’d said the wrong thing. A tear sat on the edge of her eye.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I sighed. ‘In all these excitement about chimneypots, I’d forgotten to praise you for your work on the chamberpot.’

‘It’s alright,’ said Judy, smiling a little at my word play. ‘I know what it’s like being with Stephen. It’s just sometimes hard to compete with him...’

I threw my arm around her. ‘He’s not even in your league,’ I said. ‘Now come on. Go upstairs and put on your best dress. You know how much you love your plastering? Well, at the Sir John Soane’s museum, they have a room dedicated to Victorian building supplies and they have the biggest collection of early mortars in the UK.’

She smiled, here eyes wrinkling with excitement. ‘You know, Richard,’ she said, ‘you always know how to make a woman feel special.’

I nodded in that way you sometimes nod when you know that somebody is just so very right.

The Night I Swapped Stephen Fry For Vanessa Feltz: The Truth Finally Revealed

Because the internet knows no reason when it comes to rumours, lies, and insinuation, the true story of the ongoing animosity between Vanessa Feltz and myself needs to be told. Though only six or so months old, the hostilities feel like they’ve rumbled on for a decade or more. Think Vietnam, Korea, and the Second Franco-Moroccan War in order to get a sense of the scale of this conflict. It’s only by the grace of God that the whole thing hasn’t gone nuclear.

It was February when the producers of Celebrity Wife Swap got in contact with the people at Cactus TV and asked if Judy and I would like to ‘swing it’ for the cameras. Judy had said yes before I had chance to object. I’ve never been into the swinging scene. The whole idea appalls me in the same way that I don’t buy things from flea markets. Having somebody’s cast-offs is not the Madeley way. Jeremy Clarkson once told me an anecdote about a Top Gear producer who bought an ‘unused’ second-hand electronic toothbrush from a car boot sale, only to find a pubic hair in the bristles.

So, before I could object, the producers had twinned me with Vanessa Feltz and, one Friday night in March, earlier this year, Judy moved out and in came the woman who was to be Mrs. Madeley for the next seven days. Only, the way things worked out, I think I became the new Mr. Feltz.

Things went well until the camera crew disappeared for the evening, leaving the two of us alone.

‘I hope you don’t mind,’ I said to Vanessa as I cleared away the plates from the dinner table, ‘but Stephen Fry is popping over a bit later. We always get together every Friday night to play Scrabble. I have a pretty good two letter word involving a “J” that I can’t wait to try out on him.’

‘Scrabble!’ cried Vanessa. ‘I’m not allowing any husband of mine to play Scrabble.’

The outburst stunned me, as I believe it also stunned a squadron of migratory geese as they flew overhead. They came down in a neighbouring village and Defra immediately formed a twenty mile quarantine zone until they’d worked out the cause of their deaths. Only now can the truth be told and the people of Snipschurch, Surrey, released from their private hell.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘you’re not actually my wife so I’ll do as a damn well please in my own house.’ I went to pick up Vanessa’s napkin but she grabbed my arm. If they made my life into a film, this part should be made my James Cameron and Vanessa would be an animatronic.

‘Listen, squirt,’ she hissed. ‘I came on this show to demonstrate to the world that I can be a caring wife. I’m not going to let you ruin this by bringing Stephen Fry into the house. Got it, buster?’

For the sake of my wrist, I had to agree. ‘I’ll ring him at once,’ I whispered.

‘’Tis I, Fry, speaking on my newly imported iPhone,’ said Fry when I rang him later.

‘What’s an iPhone,’ I asked, that being the first time I’d ever heard the item that was to behome his own new spouse.

‘It is a technologically marvellous thing from the Americas,’ he said. ‘It has a touchy screen on which I can now see your face as I speak to you.’

I looked at my own handset to see if I could see Fry peering through.

‘Listen,’ I said, realising the stupidity of my actions, ‘tonight’s Scrabble is cancelled.’

‘My vim is nil,’ sighed Fry, showing off the supply of three letter words that serves him so well around the board.

‘It’s not your vim I’m worried about,’ I said. ‘It’s this Vanessa woman who has taken over the house. I think she expects to sleep in the same bed as me.’

I heard Fry give a shudder. ‘Shudder,’ he said.

‘Indeed. What should I do?’

‘Alas, Richard, I have not a yen for knowing and it would make me wan to even eke out an answer. Now, ’tis I, Fry, on my iPhone, signing off.’

Michael Palin and Bill Oddie were no better when I rang them and I didn’t expect much in the way of helpful suggestions when I rang Paxman. He just spent five minutes chuckling into the phone.

Vanessa finally found me in the airing cupboard, still clutching the phone thirty minutes later, as I tried to get through to Ronnie Corbett.

‘What you doing in there?’ she asked, as she grabbed me by my collar and dragged me across the hall. ‘You don’t think Channel 4 have installed all those cameras in the bedroom for you to go sleeping in the cupboard? Come on, Dicky. Be a man! Come get in bed with your cuddly Vanessa.’

My own sweet T-101 had spoken. I got changed in the bathroom, that night, sliding the lock on the door for the first time in the ten years I’ve been living in the house. I also dressed myself in fleecy pyjamas for the first time in my life. Beneath them I still wore my outdoor clothes. I feared that might need to make an escape during the night.

‘Okay?’ asked Vanessa as I walked into the bathroom.

‘Fine,’ I said, moving quickly to my side of the bed so she might not notice the extra bulk beneath my PJs.

Vanessa smiled and walked to the bedroom door. I didn’t realise what she was doing until I heard something go click.

‘See,’ she said, ‘holding up a key. Judy said that you might try to escape during the night so I brought my own padlock.’ With that she slid the key into the deep canyon of her cleavage. ‘You’re not getting out of here until dawn.’

Dawn. Has ever a single word so utterly misrepresented an eternity?

I climbed into bed and turned off my bedside lamp before I felt the springs give as Vanessa climbed in beside me.

‘Goodnight dear,’ she said as she threw her arm over me.

‘Goodnight Vanessa,’ I replied. I didn’t know if I’d be able to sleep. It wasn’t so much the arm as the fact that Judy normally plays the trombone for half an hour before she puts her head down. Slumber wouldn’t be the same without the sweet melody of a Strauss waltz played on brass.

I was still awake around three o’clock when Vanessa released me from her grip. She rolled over and began to snore in the other direction. Slowly, hearing began to return to my right ear and as feeling returned to my body, I slipped out of the bed and into my shoes.

The bedroom window opened without a sound and I had soon edged myself out onto the trellis.

‘Richard?’ said a voice behind me.

I made an instinctive choice and jumped. Twenty feet later, I was limping to the car. I thought I’d be a mile or two away before Vanessa found the key to the padlock in her cleavage.

Two days later, I rang Judy from a small bed and breakfast on the Fylde Coast. Apparently, Vanessa had taken great offence at my deserting her in the middle of the night. She had also lost the key to the padlock and because there was no telephone in the bedroom (Judy fears them more than she fears anything), Vanessa had been trapped in the bedroom until the camera crew discovered her on Monday morning. Apparently, the video footage of her captivity is now a cult classic. Arab businessmen have distributed it around the Middle East where it now fetches a high price.

The outcome of all this is that the show’s producers sacked me and replaced me with Paul Daniels. Vanessa lived with him for a while the following April and the whole thing made for, as we say in the business, ‘good TV’.

Since then, Vanessa has been quite outspoken about me in private, though she remains the consummate professional publicly. However, there has been a long simmering Cold War between us, with much of the British entertainment industry secretly siding with either Vanessa or me. I may have the slightly smaller army of supporters but I can count all the big animals: Fry, Oddie, Clarkson, and even Paxman, in his fashion. Now I’ve made the feud public, I hope you’ll also choose a side. If I can get enough troops, we might be able to end this futile war once and forever. We might be able to liberate my reputation forever.

I can smell a storm coming in.

Or it might be Judy making beef and onions for her tea... I’ll leave it for you to decide.

In Which Richard Is Graphically Not Part Of Their Grand Design

Afternoon guys! I’m in an upbeat mood today. The weekend looms and Stephen Fry is due to pick me up early tomorrow morning to take me to see the priceless collection of chimneypot designs at The Sir John Soanes Museum. I’m also looking back on a productive week of blogging, though as usual, I’m disappointed that so many readers are coming back without leaving a single comment. I know that many of you will feel just a little awestruck, but I like to hear from you ‘little folk’, as Judy likes to call you.

The only grey cloud on this otherwise perfect roll of azure bright is an developing situation in the world of advertising. It’s quite normal given my quite eclectic interests to occasionally attract the attention of people who just don’t understand me. My recent spat with the ex-pat Brits in Tunisia and various ongoing feuds with different people are just examples of how people ‘take me the wrong way’. In my recent trawls through the world of blogs, I came across what I thought were one or two interesting little haunts where creative types hang their boots and jaw about design and copywriting. Being a man known for his strong opinions on a well turned phrase and owning a perceptive eye for visual design, I felt right at home and began to give my uninformed insights into the business and to explain to these professionals where they are going so wrong.

My arrival prompted some scepticism among the regulars visitors and, this morning, the discussion descended to the point that it has left Judy crying.

Says one man with ink on his fingers:

By the way, if you click "Richard Madeley"'s name in the comments, you'll find it may not be quite the real Richard Madeley. I'm sorry to say.

Which I don’t understand at all. If you click the name, you come here to The Richard Madeley Appreciation Society as written by me, the real Richard Madeley. How much more real can a Richard Madeley get?

Another quote:

You know, just because that link goes to the Richard Madeley Appreciation Society doesn't mean it's not the real Richard Madeley. I wouldn't put it past him.

I make the same point. It means it is the real Richard Madeley, unless somebody is appropriating my identity as was recently the case here.

Here is perhaps the most disappointing of the comments:

But look on the bright side: whoever he is, between us we'll have increased his traffic quite substantially.

Increased my traffic? How dare they! My traffic has bloomed like a low yield ‘A’ bomb since the piece appeared in The Guardian the other week. I hardly need the traffic when Blogger are emailing with warnings about putting too much stress on their servers and begging me to reduce the amounts of hits I’m getting.

The final comment is a deeply philosophical one that I should really leave for the ages to answer.

The comment doesn't (quite) sound like a joke, but if you read any of the posts on his website it seems obvious he's either (a) not who he says he is on the site or (b) not who he pretends to be on the telly. I must say, it's not a question I predicted when I agreed to take over NDG for a week.

It wasn’t a joke because I was being quite serious. If you read the posts on my website, isn’t it obvious who I am? These doubters have a point (the only point, I grant you) in that I can’t really be myself on Channel 4. Judy runs the show and I’m lucky most days if I get handed a script. I make do with what limited resources I have and ad lib when and where I can.

But this whole incident has been hugely disappointing. I often wonder if I should blog anonymously under a fake name, just like my friend Bill 'Nige' Oddie does. I’ve tried it on the official Richard & Judy forum but I’ve been bullied off their when I was seen to have criticised myself. Should I no longer leave comments where I wish? Am I to become as much a pariah among bloggers as I am at the BBC? I’m going to mull this over and ask Stephen’s opinion about it in the morning. It is, however, a depressing subject for a Friday afternoon and I should really have spent my time telling you all about Clarkson’s escape from the law yesterday and how he joked about it when he came over last night. He ran in the house and took sanctuary in our linen closet. It took us fifteen minutes to find him. However, that tale's not for today. Perhaps another time when I'm feeling more like myself.

Dick Justice

It’s a day of big news and I’ve got an announcement to make.

This afternoon, ITV gave my production company the green light to start making my new series on crime in the UK. 'Dick Justice' will see me returning to my roots as an investigative undercover reporter. In the first series, which we’re due to start filming next week, I’ll be going undercover to investigate what's really going on in the UK.

This news couldn't have come on a better day. I see that Jeremy Clarkson has been questioned by police because he’d quite rightly beat up some young thug giving him grief. And this is another example of why the country is calling out for a show like ‘Dick Justice’. Jeremy’s being vilified just because an ‘A’ list celebrity decided to take the law into his own hands. Yet men like Jeremy need supporting. I’ll be doing my best to get him involved in the show.

For myself, I won’t be beating up young louts, as much as I'd love to. I aim to become the first presenter to really get inside fanatical terror cells, outposts of the Russian mafia, and the importation of poorly made Chinese goods via the so called ‘sock’ mules arriving daily from the Isle of Man. The aim of the show is to expose the criminal gangs that are operating in the country and to shame them into changing their ways.

So, my law abiding friends, you heard it here first. There’ll be a new name for the law this Spring. Remember that name: Dick Justice.

If you need justice, just call me Dick.

Lost in the Shade of Russell Brand's Periwinkles

The generosity of spirit you know as Madeley, that handsome bundle of bone and nerve you like to call Dick, believes that he always knows if he’s going to take to a person. I remember the very moment I first met Stephen Fry. I ran across him outside a TV executive’s office, gazing into a pool of koi carp. Tapping him on the shoulder had not roused him from his meditation so I gently blew in his ear. The first words out of his mouth were: ‘a rather frigid member of the family Cyprinidae and not too distant a cousin of the minnow.’ I knew then and there that I had found a kindred spirit of great craft and imagination wandering this void of emptiness we know as fame. I’m pleased to say that, since that day, rarely has a week passed without my taking time to blow into the great man’s ear.

The encounter of this afternoon was not, however, as edifying. If the above anecdote is a perfect illustration of what can go right in a first encounter, this afternoon is a remedy for that optimism one feels towards humanity in general, but in particular, towards those men and women of the light entertainment industry.

With Judy still making preparations for Christmas, I’d gone into London to have lunch with the geniuses at Cactus TV. I thought it about time that I sat down with the ‘cacti’ and went over the ideas I’ve been having for the shows I wanted to make after the Channel 4 contract came to an end in the summer.

‘Mingers’ is one of the city’s newest eating holes among those people who think that hair gel and fringes set at funny angles amount to a personality. I’d got there early and I’d sat down to have something to eat while I waited for the team to arrive. There’s an unwritten agreement in every TV contract that means that those behind the cameras can look how they want and act how they want. You can’t find a more creative or professional team in the UK but you wouldn’t want them as relatives. Talk about being a clash with the curtains, these young people could go to war with a basket of mixed laundry…

My first course had been delivered to my table and I’d started to stir my bowl of leak soup when I heard some terrible slurping noises coming from the adjacent booth. At first, I tried to ignore it. But when it persisted, I waved the waitress over.

‘What can I do for you, Mr. Madeley?’ she asked, full of that good favour you get when the service is young, impressionable, and prone to the charms of a television smile.

‘I don’t mean to cause any trouble,’ I began, though actually I didn’t give a damn what trouble I caused so long as the slurping was dealt a mortal blow, ‘there seems to be a terrible noise coming from the next booth.’

The waitress’ face flushed.

‘Would you like to move to another part of the restaurant?’ she asked.

I thought it an odd thing to say. I’m what’s known in the TV trade as ‘A’ list material. I don’t get moved. The world gets moved before I even have to shift a toe or bestir a fingernail.

‘I’d rather you would just go and stop that slurping,’ I replied.

She looked towards the back of the restaurant and made a funny gesture with her hand. I knew it for the universal distress call of waitresses in difficult positions. I just couldn’t see what was so difficult.

A moment later, the manager arrived and I proceeded to explain why my leak soup was being disturbed by the sound of slurping. I honestly thought I’d get some movement on the issue with this penguin being in his full body armour and with a thin moustache like a slipped eyebrow.

‘I’m afraid we can’t move the gentleman at the next table,’ said the manager. He lowered his voice and leaned towards me to speak in that confidential tone they sometimes adopt when they’re being particularly spineless. ‘He’s famous.’

I did a double take. ‘And what am I? A Krankie?’

‘Oh, of course, you’re famous too, Mr. Madeley, only…’ He shrugged and gestured towards the next booth. ‘He’s a rising star.’

‘I’ll give you rising star!’ I said, throwing down my napkin and standing up.

I pushed the manager out of the way and headed in the direction of the slurping.

The sight that greeted me at the end of my search was not of this world. I can only describe it as teeth, hair, elbows, more hair, a touch of hair, more teeth, and the whole mixture of teeth, hair, and elbows wrapped in beads and ribbons. A more notable example of trying too hard to look eccentric there has never been. No doubt you know this monstrous spectacle by the name Russell Brand. I’d only heard the name mentioned a few times and for most of that time I’d just thought it a type of toaster.

‘Oh, ’ello,’ he squealed. ‘You’re Madeley ain’t you?’

‘I am,’ I said, ‘and you’re slurping.’

‘Oy! That’s Mr. Slurping to you,’ he replied and giggled like a one stoke engine fed on helium. He then looked puzzled and turned his eyes to his plate. ‘Oh, yea! Slurping. I’m actually eating my periwinkles. Lovely items of crustacean, the periwinkle. ’Ere, you want one?’

‘A periwinkle? I don’t think so.’

‘Oh, they’re very good for keeping you going, if you know what I mean. Smashing delicacies if you’re needing a bit of extra focus during those long and mysterious adventures that lead our souls to soar into the heavens and consummate our spirits with another beautiful example of God’s creative genius.’ He brushed his hair from his eyes as he looked up to the ceiling and considered his next words. ‘You know, they help you have a good shag. Shellfish in general, I think, are God’s way of telling us to keep going with the procreation and that we’re doing a bang up job. Keep it up, he said, if indeed he would say anything. He’d probably just take pictures.’

‘Isn’t that a little blasphemous?’ I asked.

‘Don’t worry yourself about that, Richard. I’ll make my peace with God when the time is right. To be quite frank, I don’t think it’s your place to judge. When the call comes, I’ll take the big fellow into a corner and have a good shufty about my misdeeds as numerous and varied as they are.’

‘I should imagine there are quite a few,’ I said, feeling a bit isolated in this conversation with a madman.

‘Oh I’ve got a lot of ’em, haven’t I?’ he said in a voice I was beginning to recognise as being like that of Kenneth Williams from ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’. ‘Course, I’ve given most of my bad habits up on account of my sexual disfunction.’

‘Sexual disfunction?’ It’s not, I admit, a phrase that one likes to hear oneself using in a public restaurant.

‘I can’t get enough of it,’ he giggled.

‘Which is why you’re slurping shellfish?’

He looked at his bowl as though it were suddenly alive with contradictions. ‘As a hugely asexual man, I’ve got to ensure that, should I be called on – and it’s only natural that I should – I’ll be able to fulfil my duties as God intended, vis-à-vis, my loins should be ready for the clarion call.’

‘Right,’ I said, ‘but you see, far be it for me to get in the way of God’s plans, but I was wondering if you could stop slurping. I’m trying to eat my soup.’

‘Course, and I don’t intend to be rude, Richard, but you look like a man who should ingest more of the periwinkle. It is, to me, the heroin of the sea floor. I used to indulge myself a little too heavily in the brown sugar but, now that I’m clean, I’m hooked on my little friends, the shellfish. Which is a good fing when you fink of it.’

‘A very good fing,’ I replied and turned away as though returning to my cold soup.

‘No, don’t go!’ cried Russell, growing agitated. ‘I had summink to say to you. I wanted to ask you you’re opinion. You know, as one man who has made it in the field of light and popular entertainment. Though, of course, you’ve done it without any discernable talents…’

I was so shocked I couldn’t speak.

‘Which is impressive in itself when you fink about it. I mean, if it weren’t for this foppish demeanour of an average Restoration cad, married to the quick and ready with of a modern Moliere, and accompanied by a brain the size of a watermelon, then I don’t fink I’d stand a chance in TV. You’d done it with next to nofink. That’s even more genius that what I am, that is.’

‘Is it?’

‘Oh, not ’alf. Proper good it is!’

I gave a small wave of my hand. ‘I really need to get back to my soup,’ I said and quickly walked back to my booth where I started to spoon leak to my grateful lips.

‘The fing is,’ said Russell, slipping into the seat across the booth from me, his bowl of winkles in his hand, ‘I want some advice about my next career move.’

‘I’m no comedian,’ I said.

‘Cor, I know that,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen your shows and I’ve read your blog. You’re about as funny as an addiction to hard drugs. Though I could tell you some funny tales. Made my career by telling funny tales of the world everybody wonders about but cares not to investigate too closely. I fink I’m sort of a David Attenborough of that dark underbelly of drug culture only I don’t go near any hairy baboons.’

I dropped my spoon and pushed my plate away.

‘You should have ordered winkles,’ said Brand.

‘I’m not hungry,’ I answered, ‘and I really have to leave.’

He shuffled around the booth and put his hand on my knee. ‘Can’t I persuade you to stay?’

I lifted his hand and dropped it on the table. ‘It’s been a pleasure meeting you,’ I said and managed to get to my feet before he could reply.

‘Oi,’ he shouts as I’m halfway across the restaurant, ‘I didn’t tell you about my renowned sexual prowess. Perhaps next time?’

I waved my had as I reached the door. Across the road, the team from Cactus were weaving their uneasy way through the London traffic. ‘Change of plans,’ I shouted. ‘We’re eating at McDonald's. The food’s crap but they don’t serve periwinkles.’

They thought I was mad but I think you can see, I’m the only sane one in this crazy industry of ours.

Mickey Rooney Smoking A Pipe

Traffic is so low that I'm trying to cater to every single one of you visiting the site tonight. For the person visiting from Virginia, USA, I believe you're looking for a picture of Mickey Rooney smoking a pipe. Luckily, I happened to have one sitting around.

Come back again, you hear?

A Christmas Makeover

Along with the turning on of the lights in Oxford Street and the delivery of the tree to Trafalgar Square, the changing of the banner at The Richard Madeley Appreciation Society has, for the last decade, marked the official start of the Christmas season. What do you think of this year’s effort? Understated? I thought so too. The photographer tells me that Oddie was very truculent on the day of the photoshoot, refusing to don a fake beard. In comparison, the rest of the lads were in and out in next to no time.

I've had Christmas cards printed for all of my visitors but unfortunately I've lost your postal addresses. I'm really sorry about that. You needn't worry, however. So long as you send me your addresses, even if I miss the last Christmas post, I'll send Judy around to deliver them by hand.

Spice and Swingle

I’m often asked where I stand on the Spice Girls. I usually answer: with one foot on Scary’s mouth and the other stamping alternatively between Posh, Ginger, Sporty, and Baby.

The Spice Girls don’t fit into my blueprint for a perfect world. The problem with these invented bands is the same as with nuclear weapons: we can’t uninvent them. The best we can hope to do is encase them in concrete and dump them in the mid-Atlantic trench, hoping that in a few hundred years, our descendants might have the technology to deal with them.

‘Must you always reduce things to absolutes?’ asked Judy this morning. She was sitting by the phone, trying to get through on the Spice Girl hotline to order tickets for their world tour.

‘So I take it that you think it unreasonable to scuttle Ginger Spice in the middle of the ocean?’ I asked. ‘I hear that these wrecks can be very good for fish. Can you imagine all the schools of cod that would be attracted to breed between her thighs? We’d soon have the fish stocks back up to pre-Spanish levels.’

Judy just glared. She loves the Spice Girls. She plays them at every opportunity. I could recite lyrics to you but then I’d have to flagellate myself for hours as punishment. You might say that Judy’s taste in music is not unlike a ex-Beatle’s taste in women. This morning, I was browsing the web when some music started to play on a website I’d visited.

‘Oh,’ she gasped, ‘what’s that?’

I well knew what it was but feared mentioning it. ‘What’s what?’ I asked, trying to close the bloody browser window.

It was too late. Judy had discovered The Swingle Singers and, an hour later, their complete back catalogue was on its way to our home. Hence our prolonged discussion on music and why Judy had decided to defy me and book tickets to see the Spice Girls.

‘You’re just moody because I’m going to see them live,’ she replied, cradling the phone on her shoulder as she waited for an operator.

‘You’re almost right,’ I replied. Judy looked surprised but before she could offer to buy me a ticket, I thought I better explain. ‘It just depends on how we choose to pronounce “live”. I admit that I’m disappointed to see them live.’

She tutted. ‘Again with the overstatement for comic effect. You’ll be asking Jeremy to see if you can get a column in a newspaper.’

‘Not a bad idea,’ I replied. ‘You’d think that the Guardian or The Telegraph would want a man of my strong convictions, ready wit, and able to turn out a vast number of words in a short period of time. On a good day, I’d say I could write twice as much as Rod Liddle. And some of it would even make sense.’

‘Though not on the Spice Girls,’ smiled Judy. She was thinking, I suppose, that she’d won the argument. Nothing could be further from the truth. Women like Judy are part of the problem. The first thing you do when you want to cure a person of a habit is to make them admit they have a problem. Spice Girl fans stand in the way of our curing the poor things of the delusions they suffer. The Spice Girls have made millions through songs that have all the musical complexity of a bag of manure falling over in a heavy gale. Rather than being fashion icons, they dress like transvestites and make Danny La Rue appear conservative. Yet beneath the glitzy surface there are further glitzy surfaces. Dig a little deeper and you’ll come out on the other side wondering what happened to the middle.

‘I’m going for a walk,’ I said as Judy carried on humming like a Swingle Singer.

‘Hmmmm boop boop da dee dah da da,’ she said.

She was still saying when I came back with my coat.

‘I might be some time.’

‘Dee da doo de da…’

‘I’m thinking of faking my own death and rowing a canoe to Panama with Bill Oddie.’

‘Ya de dah doo dee da de da dum de da…’

There was no point arguing with that. Between the Swingles and the Spices, it’s a wonder that I have the enthusiasm to keep on drawing breath.

A Pubic Apology

‘Ignorance is no excuse,’ said Judy ten minutes ago. I replied that I thought it was. I thought ignorance was the only excuse…

Dear readers. You find me with a deep purple hue on my cheek, the blush of shame on my chin. I have an apology to make to you. Although this wasn’t actually my fault, I feel like I’ve corrupted you all. In years to come, when asked when you developed your fetish for clowns, Tammy Wynette, and spacehoppers, you’ll blame me. You’ll say: Richard Madeley did this to me. He showed me pictures when I’d only gone to read about Frank Carson.

Checking on my site’s feed this afternoon, I discovered that a number of the photographs I’d used to illustrate my earlier posts had mysteriously changed. In a scandal bigger than the ‘You Say We Pay’ fiasco, innocent illustrations had been altered to depict – how shall I put this – rutting, mating, mounting and dismounting. Some of the changes were along the lines of the surreal. A picture of Tammy Wynette had become a pan of spaghetti on the boil. A tin of prunes had become a two circus clowns waving to camera. Dennis Hopper had become a space hopper. Much more disturbing was the picture of Frank Carson. It had become a plump woman enjoying a pleasurable time with two gentlemen from that fine city of Wellhung, Bavaria.

Actually, there were three pornographic images on my blog. I can only apologise if they offended you. This came as a great shock to me and put me off my lunch. You must have been wondering what kind of man I am; illustrating my Appreciation Society with images of ladies with well shaves armpits. In my opinion, men with large moustaches and no clothes have no place on the internet. They certainly have no place of the Richard Madeley Appreciation Society. And I don’t care how big they are.

I can only apologise, apologise, and apologise again. I didn’t quite understand how to include pictures into those early posts and had accidentally ‘hot linked’ to images not under my control. They’ve now been deleted and I’m installing measures to ensure that images of grinning men and ladies with tattooed ankles can never take over this family friendly blog.

That Oddie Time Of Year

Christmas!

I swear, if Jesus were alive today, he’d be rolling in his grave. What with all the present buying, the inevitable present wrapping, and then the present giving: the whole thing makes me wish that I didn’t have to be present. I’d got up a little late today, only to discover that the tree was already up. A sharp stab of pain in my heel informed that it was already dropping needles on the carpet. Judy arrived home before lunch, her arms full of Christmas wrapping paper, tinsel, and other relics of an afternoon disposing of disposable income.

‘I do love this time of year,’ she opined after she’d changed into her grey cotton tracksuit and laid out all her purchases before the fireplace. ‘We must decide what we’re doing on Christmas day,’ she added. ‘There’s nothing like being prepared.’

‘Why do we need to decide now?’ I asked. ‘It’s weeks away. You know me, Judy. I don’t make plans until I can actually visualise the day on my mental calendar.’

‘That’s right, Richard. There’s today and then there’s tomorrow. The rest of time is merely labelled “future”.’

Put a little harshly, I thought, but Judy was right. ‘I just don’t believe in planning too far ahead,’ I explained. ‘You never know what’s going to happen before then.’

‘That’s how we end up in trouble like last year when you’d told Billy Connolly that we’d go and stay with him.’

‘And I still swear we made the wrong choice,’ I replied, sourly remembering the miserable time we’d endured on a cruise-ship stuck with Leo Sayer. It had meant to be a break from our troubles and not a prison sentence with Satan’s curlier haired brother.

‘This year,’ said Judy, ‘we’re going to let people know what we’re doing for Christmas. I’ve been thinking that we should invite people over. You can ask Stephen and Michael if they’d like to spend the day with us and I’ll invite my friends. Judith says she’s not doing much over the holidays…’

‘Good idea,’ I said, ‘only the Oddies have invited us to spend the day with them.’

Judy pulled her face at either side of her mouth as though it were a cracker. I waited a moment but nothing fell out. Not even an old joke about making Eskimos roll.

‘Did that grimace mean something?’ I asked.

She grimaced again. ‘Can you imagine Christmas Day spent with Bill Oddie?’

‘I can indeed,’ I said. ‘And that’s why I’m up for it! There can be no family in the United Kingdom who’ll be more festive than the Oddies. Bill dressed up as Santa. Plenty of wildfowl roasting on open fires. And when he’s done doing an autopsy on the turkey, we’ll all sit around and sing carols as Bill serenades us on the spoons. If that’s not a great Christmas, you don’t know the meaning of “good cheer”.’

Judy looked at me as though I were one already on the spoons.

‘I am not spending Christmas Day with Bill Oddie in charge of the turkey,’ she said. ‘There’s something to be said about not letting that man loose with sharp knives. He’s much too excitable, waving his arms around like he does. I don’t think my nerves could stand it. You know it’s sure to end in bloodshed…’

‘Oh, and I suppose you’ve got a better suggestion?’

‘Actually, I have,’ she said. ‘Sharon rang me up and…’

‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘Never. Not on your life. I’d rather spend Christmas with Dr. Raj and his sugar tits.’

‘You don’t even know what I was going to say.’

‘It going to involve the word Osbourne and I’m not having anything to do with it. You know how I feel about that family. Do you honestly think they’d welcome in their home after the things I’ve said about them?’

‘It is the season of goodwill to all men,’ she reminded me.

‘But not to them. They don’t count. The Good Book doesn’t say anything about my having to spend Christmas on a state of high alert. I honestly believe that if I took them out with a high powered rifle, I’d be doing the Lord’s work.’

Judy’s face clouded. ‘You cannot mean something as horrible as that, Richard!’

‘Perhaps I don’t,’ I replied. ‘But it’s bad enough that you ruin my mood by getting to me talk about Christmas when it’s still weeks away, but now you’re provoking me with the Osbournes. How you can prefer those people over Bill Oddie, I’ll never know. It would be like spending Christmas in a ward full of patients with severe brain trauma.’

‘Well, Bill just makes me feel nervous,’ Judy replied. ‘And you know I don’t like wool. You’d never get Sharon wearing cardigans. She’s a silk and polyester woman.’

‘So that’s what it comes down to? Wool! It doesn’t matter than Sharon’s got the mouth of a fishwife and her husband has all the social grace of squid.’

Judy threw down the wrapping paper and climbed to her feet. ‘You need to give this some thought, Richard Madeley. I’m not going to spend Christmas with Bill Oddie and his horrendous Hawaiian shirts. That’s my final word on the matter.’ And with a final vulgar comment on my taste in friends, Judy stormed from the room.

This whole argument took place this morning. I’m writing this at two o’clock in the afternoon when the house is quiet and the issue has finally been settled for some hours.

I was pouring out the wine for our lunch when Judy offered me the olive branch.

‘We could invite the Oddies here,’ she said. ‘We’ve got more than enough room for Bill when he gets excited and starts swinging his arms around.’

‘And Bill’s woolly Hawaiian shirts?’

She smiled. ‘Those too.’

‘Okay but this doesn’t mean I’m having an Osbourne in my house,’ I warned.

‘No, I wouldn’t expect you to. You can invite the Clarksons and I’ll invite Cilla.’

It’s a dark day when Cilla Black is considered a compromise. However, if it meant an end to our disagreement, I was happy to agree to the peace terms.

‘I’ll see if Stephen’s busy,’ I said, handing Judy the wine bottle. ‘We’d need somebody to dress as Santa and I know he loves the beard.’

‘You’re ringing him right now?’

I paused at the door. ‘You don’t think I’m agreeing to a Christmas day with Cilla Black unless I’m sure Stephen’s going to be there? You know they cancel each other. He’s like a healthy dose of anti-matter to her high pitched matter.’

Unusually, the phone rang an five times before he picked it up.

‘’Tis I Fry, on my iPhone, bewailing the lack of quality tinsel in my bargain box of Tesco decorations.’

‘Putting up your tree, Stephen?’

‘No, I’m decorating my ironing board. It is you, Richard? There are few men who can do justice to such a ridiculous question.’ He paused to take a breath. When he spoke again, he sounded calmer. ‘I am indeed engaged in erecting a mighty spruce tree in my chambers here at Fry Towers. My slight irritation marks, as it were, my singular lack of enthusiasm with this year’s arrangements. Jack Dee has cancelled our yearly carol singing and dear old Hugh is across the pond celebrating Christmas the American way. It involves children.’

‘Bad times ahead,’ I agreed. ‘And that’s why I’m ringing. Judy wants to know if you’d like to spend Christmas day with us? We’re thinking of having friends over but I’d want your official nod before I commit.’

‘Then consider this fine brow of mine as having duly nodded,’ said Stephen. ‘I would be most delighted to celebrate the season the Yule with you. Would you be interested in my playing the role of Santa? You know, I wrote the book on how to play the role.’

Which is true. His latest book, “How to Play Santa The Stephen Fry Way” is out at all good bookshops. Highly recommended it is too.

‘Interested?’ I said. ‘We’d be disappointed if you didn’t come dressed as Saint Nick.’

His voice cracked with emotion. ‘I believe I know where I’ve put some of last year’s tinsel,’ he said, tears surely dripping off his cheek. ‘Tell Judy that she needn’t worry about a thing. I won’t let her down. ’Tis I, Fry, on my iPhone, hanging up.’

‘It’s done,’ I said to Judy as I returned to the dining table. ‘Fry’s confirmed. Now I’ll ring Bill.’

‘You could wait until you’ve finished lunch,’ she said.

‘Lunch! With Christmas only three weeks away? We’ve got plans to make. Decorations to buy. Illuminated reindeer to fox on the roof. This is going to be the best Christmas ever,’ I promised her. ‘You see, my dear Judy, you just have to get into the Christmas sprit. Now, before you go up the ladder, don’t you think you should wear something a bit warmer. I imagine it can get a bit chilly up there…’

Breaking News

I’ve just got off the phone with Judith Chalmers and I’m delighted to announce that she has finally agreed to become my official mystic. I’ve been angling to get Judith on board for some time but the people at Cactus TV, who make the show, are as prickly a group of talents as you might hope to find within the drinking dens of Greater London. They don’t share my faith in Judith’s ability to see the future. However, a compromise has now been reached. Judith will provide regular mystical visions for this blog and, should they prove accurate, she’ll then get screen time on Channel 4.

As you know, Judith has been providing psychic readings in celebrity circles for years but I’m delighted to have this opportunity to present her 'dizzy spells' to a wider audience. From now on, Judith will always be carrying a printout of this website’s statistics in her handbag . Whenever she feels a vision coming to her, she’ll quickly touch the stats and make a prediction. She believes that this will help her tune into the future, not just of myself, but of my wider readership.

She rang me again at four to say she’s already made her first prophesies. The vision had come to her about half past three and, luckily, since I'd already given her the password to my stats, the the old trooper got stuck right in. These predictions, you might say, are hot off the Chalmers...

Judith speaks:

'Richard: you must contact a man called Morris and make peace with the BBC. I see big things ahead for you. I also have a message for all your readers. Beware doorknobs, hand towels, and men who are exactly five feet six inches tall living in Great Yarmouth. To visitors from Chicago, Illinois, please take care if you think it’s pink and made of rubber. It’s not. It’s real. People in Solihull should wear an extra pair of socks and dance the tango in the rain. And if you’re from Warrington and have larger than average ears, I see a vast fortune coming your way. People in High Wycombe should beware of elves and men with nine sided dice.'

There you go. I’m sure you’ll want to join me and thank Judith for these wise words. I don’t know what to make of everything but I think we should all be wary about her warning about things that are pink and look like rubber.

The Curious Affair of Jeremy Clarkson's French Badger

Those of you who have been paying attention might remember my mentioning the lap I drove for Jeremy Clarkson a few months ago. Ahead of the new series of ‘Top Gear’, he’d dared me to set a blazing time in a Chevrolet Lacetti around their test track. Unfortunately, contractual problems to do with my ongoing feud with the BBC meant that the whole thing had to be scrapped at the last minute. James Blunt took my place and, if you saw last night's show, I'm sure you'll agree with me when I say that he did a pretty poor job. If you’d been looking carefully, you might even have noticed an odd shifting of all the scores down the ‘Star In a Reasonably Priced Car’ board. My absence accounts for the ominous gap at the top.

In a fit of fair play that really doesn’t suit the BBC, the producers insisted that since I hadn’t actually appeared on the show, my time couldn’t stand. Judy was more upset than I, having already sent Simon Cowell a photograph of her behind with 1 minute 31 seconds written across her cheeks and employing a cunningly placed decimal point somewhere about the middle.

Yesterday morning, the telephone rang. It was Clarkson.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Is this the badger torturing ring? I have a badger here that needs cruelly mistreating.’

‘Hello, Jeremy,’ I answered. ‘You’re sounding in good form today. I always say that a discussion on animal cruelty is the best thing to brighten up a Sunday morning. I’m just a bit surprised that you’ve not managed to make some disparaging remarks about Europe while you’re about it.’

‘Oh, haven’t I?’ he asked. I swear the smugness in his voice was enough to make the plastic of the phone go soft. ‘I suppose I failed to mention that it is a French badger.’

I could see that this would take some time.

‘A French badger?’ I said, turning on the speaker phone so I could get back to my yoga. Men like Clarkson can be insufferable bores unless you manage to ride their wits to the inevitable sharp turn. That’s where they usually end up, nose to brainstem, wrapped around a tree.

‘And how have you managed to establish that it’s a French badger?’ I asked as I tucked my left knee behind my right ear.

‘Of course he’s a French badger. He can whistle La Marseillaise.’

‘Can a badger whistle? News to me, Clarkson. My very good friend, Bill Oddie, has told me otherwise. Apparently, badgers are one of the few animals born without lips.’

‘I never said he used his mouth,’ Jeremy spluttered, sounding momentarily confused.

‘He doesn’t use his lips?’

‘Come, come, Richard. Don’t tell me that Oddie hasn’t explained how badgers are the most flatulent of all mammals! Most of the noises they make come for their bottoms.’

‘Okay, so you’re telling me that you’ve got a flatulent French badger that can whistle La Marseillaise through its bottom and you’d quite like me to do it some harm?’

‘Yes,’ said Jeremy. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

‘And does this badger have a name?’

‘He does… er… it’s Wilf.’

‘Wilf the badger. Right. You’ve a French badger called Wilf?’

‘He’s only half French. Look, does it really matter?’

That was the sign of weakness I was waiting for. It’s like breaking a mustang. Eventually, he’ll get tired of acting crazy, start mumbling, and then you can mount him any way you wish, though, of course, not in any other sense but the metaphorical one.

‘Tell me the truth, Jeremy,’ I said, preparing the ground for the inevitable apology. ‘Do you actually have a badger?’

‘Yes, well, no, no I don’t. I’m sorry about that,’ he said. ‘I was only ringing to see if you’d like to come over tonight and we’ll laugh at James Blunt making a mess of his lap.’

‘You should have said that to begin with,’ I told him. ‘We’d be delighted to come round. You worry me, sometimes, Jeremy. I’m not one of your Sun readers. You can’t fob off with that old rubbish you mumble into the phone for some poor juvenile to type up at News International.’

‘You don’t read my columns?’ asked Jeremy, sounding just a little hurt.

‘I don’t even read you in The Times,’ I said, but thought to make him feel better. ‘Judy did buy me one of your books last Christmas, though.’

‘Did you enjoy it?’

‘Loved it,’ I lied. I’d forcibly enlisted it into the Salvation Army’s last jumble sale. Nor could I tell him that I’d abandoned his columns of high wit for Stephen’s columns of even higher wit in The Guardian. I pushed my nose to my groin and wondered why Clarkson has never had Fry on the show. The man was built for time trials and James May.

‘What was that clicking?’ asked Jeremy.

‘Oh, that? Nothing,’ I said. ‘Just my spine realigning itself. You were saying about all the quality wine you’d be forcing down our throats tonight?’

‘Was I?’ asked Jeremy, still in a very suggestive state after his humiliation over his failed badger joke. ‘I suppose I can open a bottle or two of the good stuff.’

‘Then we’ll be over around seven,’ I said and made to hang up the phone with my elbow.

‘Excellent,’ said Clarkson before the line went dead. ‘I’ll have the badger ready.’

Last night, we drove the half mile down the country road outside Chipping Norton until we reached the gates to the Clarkson estate. We immediately came under the glaring beams of two automated security lights disguised as East German sentries with machine guns. He has such a sense of humour, Jeremy, that I sometimes wonder how he’s never managed to restart the Cold War…

‘Come on in!’ said the man himself after we’d negotiated another mile of driveway. ‘Take off your shoes, leave your worries at the door, and have yourself a seat in front of my nice new TV set.’

Judy cast me a warning glance, as though the penny had dropped in a most audible way. She was right. There in Clarkson’s front room was a brand new plasma TV.

‘How big is that?’ I asked.

‘Seventy six inches,’ he said as he posed beside it, one arm on the set and his face beaming in that slightly imbecilic way he has when groping new technology.

‘Ah,’ I said, ‘the smaller model! You didn’t have the room for the full sized set?’

He looked down on me, his face suddenly devoid of humour. ‘You’ve got a bigger TV than this?’

‘Eighty three inches,’ I said. ‘Eighty three terrifying inches.’

His lip quivered as my wife disappeared with Mrs. Clarkson into the back room.

‘Don’t worry,’ I told him. ‘I’m sure it’s big enough for you. I shouldn’t imagine you spend much time watching television. Those witty two hundred word columns of yours must take you hours to write.’

‘No, not really,’ he said, a little crestfallen. ‘A drink, Richard?’

‘I’ll just have what you’re having,’ I said. ‘Is that wine?’

He looked to his glass and thought a moment. ‘It’s wine reinforced with vodka.’

‘Sounds great,’ I smiled. ‘I’ll have one of those.’

‘Might be a bit too strong for you.’

‘You know me, Jeremy. I like my drinks strong.’

‘Yes, well, perhaps not this strong. I have it with a little touch of white spirit to give it a kick.’

‘Just a touch?’

He looked at me as though it were a trick question. ‘Yes,’ he said.

Of course, it was a trick question. ‘I’ll have the same but with a little more white spirit. I like more than just a kick. I like a real man’s drink.’

‘I bet you do,’ he said, with a menacing edge to his voice.

Now, you’re probably all sitting there wondering what this was all about. I don’t honestly know myself. Judy says that I become fiercely competitive when I’m with Jeremy, but I don’t see it myself. It just seems only natural that I outdo him in everything he puts his hand to. I can’t say that I find it particularly difficult. The man has such a limited imagination when it comes to excessive behaviour. He tends to think that joking about badger cruelty is the worst that a man can get. I know different.

‘So, Jeremy,’ I said, much later after we’d sat through a dull opening segment to this week’s show. ‘What’s the fastest you’ve ever driven the Chevrolet Lacetti around the Top Gear test track?’

‘Oh, one minute and a some more seconds,’ he said. ‘I really can’t remember.’

‘One minute fifty two,’ said Mrs. Clarkson. She patted the poor old fool’s arm as though beating one hundred and twenty seconds were some kind of achievement.

Judy flushed with pride. ‘Richard did it much faster than that,’ she said.

‘Oh,’ said Mrs. Clarkson turning to the most handsome man in the room. ‘How quick did you go, Dick?’

‘I can’t remember the exact figure,’ I said and looked worryingly towards Judy in the fear that she would go revealing the 1 minute 31 seconds still written across her cheeks and employing a cunningly placed decimal point somewhere about the middle.

At that moment, Jeremy sat forward in his chair and stared at the screen.

‘Double or nothing,’ he said.

‘Pardon?’ I asked.

‘I’ll have a race with you now. Double or nothing. If you win, I’ll put your score back at the top of the board. If you lose, we never speak of this again. We’ll deny that it even happened.’

‘You’re on,’ I said.

‘Richard!’ cried Judy. ‘You don’t even know what you’re racing.’

‘Oh, leave that to me,’ said Jeremy, standing up. ‘I’ve got a pair of brand new Westwood T1800H lawnmowers in the shed. We’ll race them. Five laps around the back lawn.’

I can’t say I’ve been involved in many more surreal moments than when Jeremy Clarkson powered up the floodlights that lit the five acre lawn that sits behind his property up there in Chipping Norton. I was sitting astride a red lawn mower, wearing a helmet and goggles commonly worn by toads in tales of high jinks set against the backdrop of a riverbank. Jeremy was soon doing the same, though I like to think that the look of fear on his face was uniquely his own.

Judy stepped forward, a white tea towel in her hand, and stood between us with her skirt hitched up around her thighs.

‘What you standing there for?’ I cried. ‘You’ll be mown down.’

‘Oh, Richard! I’ve watched the Fast and the Furious,’ she said. ‘I think I know how to start these races.’

I thought she was taking it a bit too seriously but I had grass to cut.

‘On your marks,’ she said. ‘Get set…’

Clarkson was off!

‘The bloody cheek!’ I cried as I gunned my engine and set off after him.

Cut grass was in my face before I hit the first turn of the five lap race. Clarkson was taking the optimum line into every corner and cutting a thick swath of goat fodder as he went. That was to my advantage. Keeping to his line, I could gain on him quickly as my own mower didn’t need to cut the grass. Overtaking would be a different proposition involving my cutting a new racing line into the longer grass. It would take me at least a lap or two before I’d be in a position to overtake.

It quickly became a race of high strategy. Jeremy stuck to his line as I weaved behind him, making new lines into every corner. After the third lap, I was under his tale and began to make moves on his inside lane. The man doesn’t know to play fair and blocked my every attempt. On the fourth lap, I momentarily lost control after he deliberately threw his helmet into the blades of my mower.

If I was going to win, I knew I would have to take him on the last lap.

At the first and second corners, I feinted to make a passing move on the inside and he, as expected, blocked me. It was on the third corner that I did the same but immediately hit the throttle and moved to his outside. I was too quick for him. Before Clarkson had finished reacting to my inside move, I was on his outside and in a clear patch of grass. That was the break I needed and it became a straight race towards the finishing line. I could see Clarkson, holding tightly to his mower, his face set in a look of fierce determination. We were inches apart, our wheels sparking as they touched. Finally, with the line only feet away, Clarkson stuck out his leg and gave me a kick. I swerved instinctively, giving him the lead as we crossed the line.

‘I think that was quite a comprehensive victory by the BBC,’ said Clarkson as we climbed from our lawn mowers.

‘You’re a bloody cheat, Clarkson,’ I said, standing up to him.

‘Richard, in all fairness,’ said Judy, coming down to greet us with Mrs. Clarkson. ‘I do think that Jeremy won.’

‘You traitor!’ I screamed.

Clarkson just stood there, his hand affixed to his rather large forehead in that pose he adopts whenever he wins. ‘Loser,’ he mouthed.

‘Get our coats, Judy, we’re leaving,’ I said as Clarkson began to trail me to the car.

Judy disappeared into the house so she didn’t see me turn on Jeremy. ‘You’ve done me a huge favour there, mate,’ I said, shaking him by the hand.

‘It was a pleasure,’ said Jeremy. ‘I couldn’t bear to think of your dear wife revealing her bottom to the world.’

When he put it like that, I was doubly glad that I’d rang him back to arrange this little deception. I gave him a punch on the shoulder. ‘I owe you one,’ I said.

‘No, I owe you,’ smiled Jeremy. ‘You ever want anything writing for that blog of yours, you know who to call. Two hundred words. Three hundred. You name it.’

‘I’ll hold you to that, Clarkson,’ I replied as Judy reappeared carrying my sheepskin coat. She wasn’t hiding her disappointment at all well but at least she was hiding her decimal point. And that was all that mattered to me, Simon Cowell, and, I'm sure, the world at large.

On The Nature of All Things Mirren

We had a little party at our house tonight for close friends. Nothing special, it was a time for old faces and well worn anecdotes. It was livened up a little after dinner when, having invested a little too heavily in the grape, Nigel Havers challenged Wendy Craig to a fist fight. Of course, I stepped between them but only after Havers had been laid out on the lawn, the merest tap of Wendy’s knuckle having drawn blood from his nose. How were any of us to know that she’d learned her unarmed combat skills with the RSC?

But this was another example of how celebrities never fail to surprise me. You normal people – and by ‘normal’ I only mean unknown, talentless and generally feckless – can never imagine how those of us born to this life have a surfeit of skills. Jack Osbourne isn’t a prodigiously annoying young man with fewer talents than he has wits. He’s actually a classically trained oboist and has written two books on the symbolic language used in eighteenth century Italian libretti. His sister has so many charms that I wouldn’t know where to begin. Kelly’s work to negotiate a peace treaty between East African nations has been unfairly ignored by the media who insist on portraying her as the spawn of a village idiot and a succubus. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Jumping to conclusions is a fault we all share. Whether vastly blessed with ability and TV contracts, or struggling to pay off credit card bills amassed in the local off-licence, we are all occasionally prone to grasping the wrong end of the stick. My post, yesterday, has been wrongly interpreted as a moan about my readership. Such a conclusion can hardly be further from the truth.

My wishing for more readers would be like complaining that the membership of the local heath club was too low and we want more colonic irrigators pumping out large-hipped shop assistants. Do we go to the golf club and decry the lack of imbecilic bus conductors or witless manual workers? Of course we don’t. And the same is true of my blog. I’m glad that it’s exclusive. Keeps out the undesirables. And before you take offence, that doesn’t mean you, but it does mean the person following you. Yes, you!

I think this all came into focus a few months ago. I was at the premier of some film – I can’t remember the title because we slipped out the back once we’d been photographed on the red carpet – where I got chatting to its star. Helen Mirren radiates beauty, talent, and charm on screen but she’s an intense ball of eroticism in the flesh She’s an actress I’ve always admired from afar for a couple of reasons. I said as much to her as I cornered her outside the ladies in the Odeon.

‘Looking forward to seeing the film enormously, Helen,’ I said. ‘But since I won’t be staying around to watch it tonight, can you tell me: when if finally comes to DVD, can I expect to see the unubiquitous topless shot?’

She pulled in her chin, as though a little started by my honesty. ‘I’m playing the Queen,’ she replied.

‘Yes, but isn’t it a matter of artistic interpretation and what’s right for the role?’ I asked. ‘And given that you’re playing the Queen, who is, I believe, a woman, God bless her, wouldn’t it only be right to portray her in her natural habitat, i.e., strap free and swinging loose? I mean, she is part German. That makes it continental film. You know… Like the French.’

‘Richard, I think you’re being rather rude,’ said Helen. ‘I don’t know if you’re trying to be amusing or trying to annoy me.’

‘Hey!’ I said. ‘I’m not the one who can’t keep my nipples in my dress!’

She thrush a glass of champagne into my hand and backed away. ‘I’m sure we’re all glad about that,’ she replied. ‘And for what it’s worth, I think people get naked in modern films far too often. Sometimes it’s sexier if it’s left to the imagination.’

And with that, she began to retreat towards the bathroom. I was left there, holding her glass in my hand, and feeling the eyes of celebrities staring at me. I couldn’t let them think that TV’s greatest talker had been outfoxed by a mere actress.

‘So,’ I shouted to Helen’s back, ‘where does that leave those of us who don’t have an imagination? That’s what I’ve always loved about your work, Helen. I didn’t have to imagine a thing. It was all there. Up on the screen. In glorious colour. Looking down on me…’

A moment later, a guard arrived and asked me to accompany him to the stage door where I happily met up with Judy who had been escorted there after having an argument of her own. She’s apparently had a furious row with ‘Handy Andy’ who she’d taken to task about the right way to put up shelves on a studded wall. And that’s when I fist came to realise that the celebrity mind is a hugely complicate and often contradictory thing.

We all want to be loved and we crave attention. Yet we also hide ourselves away and seek solitude. We’re eager to get naked on the screen, yet become little puritans when people say they admire our jugs, cherries, onions, or, indeed, our slightly bent bread sticks. So, when I say I want lots of readers, know that I’m happy with what I’ve got. And when I say that I’m happy with what I’ve got, know that I want more… many, many more.

Could it be any simpler than that? I think not.

Blogroll Paranoia

Hi guys! Traffic is always low at the weekend and today is no exception. I can only assume that I’m the only person sitting here, surfing the web in my large Channel 4 dressing gown and slippers. Like any well adjusted celebrity, I’ve spent most of my time looking up my name on Google. It’s the easiest way to see what’s happening in my life. It was edifying to see Hello Magazine describe me, quite accurately I thought, as one of ‘TV's best-loved personalities’.

It’s how I had the misfortune of tuning into a blog that has recently dumped me from their blogroll. I don’t know why I’m no longer there but curses on this rejection! Have the people no idea what they’re doing? Why did this blogger have such a change of heart about me? Perhaps some kind of miswired circuitry in their brain? A blockage of some sort? Does my name perhaps remind them of an uncle Richard who has recently gone to prison for misdemeanors involving animals? Do you think I should email them to ask?

The sad truth is that this isn’t the first time I’ve been ‘unlisted’ from a blogroll. It happens to me on a weekly basis. After I launched my Appreciation Society, I was getting listed in dozens of blogs. I was welcomed with open arms by many. Then, after about a week, most had dropped me. Had I done something wrong? I think not. The same is true of many of the first visitors to this blog. Looking back to my earliest posts, many of the original commentators no longer drop by. Surely somebody must have got to them.

Since I’m at a loss to know what I’ve done, I suspect devilry on behalf of Channel 4. Knowing that my contract isn’t going to be renewed, they are secretly spreading misinformation about me. They are emailing all these bloggers to tell them that I’m a dangerous man prone to mood swings. Those of you who have been reading me for long enough know that this is all rubbish. But what could Channel 4 be gaining by this cruel deception?

I’ve also noticed another thing. I often leave comments on blogs and I get no reply. Often, I’ll leave a comment and then another person will leave a comment, and the blog owner replies to the second comment but not to mine. It’s as though I don’t exist. I’ve had to use logic to reason myself around this insult. I think I leave comments of such stunning wit that people haven’t the capacity to match it. My comments are like Shakespearean sonnets and are perfect as they sit.

Oh, why am I telling you any of this? It’s Saturday and there’s nobody there. I’m off to watch last night’s episode of QI.