Thursday 15 May 2008

In Which I Respond To An Outrageous Accusation

I’m blogging late tonight and I have to ask you to picture the scene. Judy is already in bed. Fed with cocoa laced with Horlicks and a tablespoon of Ovaltine, she is wrapped in her fleecy pink PJs and lies with her knees in the air dreaming of Engelbert Humperdinck frolicking naked on his mink farm. Meanwhile, I’m down here in my office. My tie is dragged to one side and the shirt is wet on my back. I light myself another cigarette before I pour myself three fingers of some cheap cooking sherry I found behind the potatoes in the pantry. Only then do I run a hand across my unshaven (though undoubtedly handsome) jaw and contemplate the next words I’m about to hammer into my keyboard.

‘Saul Bellow eat your heart out!’ I cry. ‘How’s that for setting a scene?’

Here, I think, you have a touching portrait of a man deeply troubled. A man who has tonight been accused of lacking depth!

‘Where is your killer punch,’ wrote a friendly blogger.

‘Where indeed?’ I replied.

I’m a man who writes his blog in minutes, not hours. My mind only flits here for relaxation while my body does great things in the real world. You might say that this blog is the product of .05% of my brain’s capacity for genius. Yet the accusation that I lack depth still troubles me. I won’t shame those shameful types who have said these things. I only ask that they take heed of wiser words than mine. For I believe it was Cicero who once lamented: ‘high ratings don’t make the man shallow, but the shallow man can have high ratings, particularly on Channel 5 when the show features oily breasts and that guy who used to be in Eastenders and has a metal plate in his head’.

So, what if I’m here for cheap laughs? I always thought there was more between us than that. So much more. Forgive me for speaking on your behalf, but I thought we had something special going on between us. Not in a way that requires lubrication or tissues. I just mean: intellectually. After all, you are members of my ‘Appreciation Society’ and part of that appreciation is to understand my many hidden depths. Work commitments might prevent me from posting my regular interesting facts, but it doesn’t mean than I’m no longer in possession of suitable nuggets of data were you to ever need them. You only need to ask and I will tell you that Australia is the single largest piece of sandstone in the world and that earwigs got their name because they resemble Victorian ‘ear wigs’ that were popular in the 1840s. You want more? Well, did you know that brisket is technically a biscuit of meat and that Kent has more homeless Iranians than Tehran?

But I can see that all this depth is wasted on some of you.

I’m travelling up to Manchester in the morning, hoping to find inebriated Russian billionaires littering the streets after the UEFA Cup celebrations. As I rummage through their pockets, I’m going to try to formulate a new action plan for this blog. You claim that I’m not writing enough quality material and I agree. A re-launch is called for. Even the title, ‘The Richard Madeley Appreciation Society’ might need altering to highlight that this is blog written for intellectuals by intellectuals. I’ll leave Elberry to quote his German philosophers and post pictures of flat-chested women who choose to wear no knickers despite the high likelihood of their needing to bend over while standing in close proximity to a camera with a zoom lens. I’ll stick with handling the meaty end of the thinker’s baton, so to speak. I might not have the eye for interesting curios like Bryan Appleyard, know a little about everything else like Nige, nor have an encyclopaedic knowledge of brothel etiquette like Selena Dreamy. I don't know a thing about literature and choose to leave that sort of business to Ms. Baroque. I'm no font loving style magnet like Davethedesigner and my hand could not find the pulse of American politics if you placed my fingers on Hillary's thigh. I suggest you go see Jerry Caesar if that's your thing. And if you want your politics cold and aloof, head over to that frightful bore, Iain Dale, and ask him about ten pence tax rates and Gordon Brown’s habit of scratching his nose when happy.

However, those of you that choose to stay with me will see that I have an abundance of good sense. With the right plan, I might even start to enlighten you to my further hidden depths. You'll discover why I don't trust people who buy 'The Big Issue' and what rare earth metal I've had lodged up my right nostril since Vietnam. What's more: I’ll make thinkers out of all of you. Then we’ll see who still believes that I write ‘a shallow blog’.

8 comments:

Lola said...

Outrageous! I am truly shocked. I am also willing to beat up anyone else who casts aspersions on your depth, width or height, which I can vouch for in any way you like. Send 'em over, I'll take 'em on. As if midget ponies and barbeque incidents lack depth - wasn't Simon Schama there, after all? Oh, he wasn't?

Anonymous said...

Take not a blind bit of notice of the knockers who claim your blog is shallow. Your childish wit has helped lift me from the depth of depression, I am now able to laugh at life.Just knowing there is a Dick like you in the blogosphere makes me feel less alone. Keep up the good work.Please could you post more pics of bosoms on your blog.

Selena Dreamy said...

Brilliant, Richard, that’s what I call payback time.

Some extremely well-argued points there. What’s more, I would simply impute any suggestions of lack of depths to the want of epistolary dexterity on the part of those who read your blog, rather than to any indisposition of your own.

Frankly, you are getting me all tongue tied....this, honestly, is a cracking piece of reply. Certainly all the cunning and depth’s I require - and I mean it -apart, of course, from the name of the culprit who disparaged you so.

He or she must be made to recant, or better still, put into the pillory with a sign saying: “I am your profligate, naughty slut. Go ahead. You know what I deserve!”

Dreamy

Anonymous said...

Actually, quite a few of my girls do wear knickers, if you'd care to click on my 'women' tag and browse through them...

and nothing wrong with comedy at all. Was it not Socrates who is reputed to have gone on to explain why comedy is as grand as tragedy, in the Symposium?

Your critic may as well ask why Selena doesn't have pictures of naked girls, or why Bryan doesn't have more Bill Oddie, etc. Everyone is different, an obvious fact that shouldn't even need stating, let alone defending.

Uncle Dick Madeley said...

Lola, thank you for leaping to my defence. Sharma was there but he's a timid soul and rarely comes out from behind the cheese nibbles.

Twitcher, what 'childish wit'? Didn't I say that this is a blog written for intelletuals by intellectuals?

Selena, the culprit will remain nameless and any business involving a wooden pillory will stay private, as is only right when it involves two consenting adults.

Elberry, I have to be quick as I'm under fire from drunk Russian troops stationed in the heart of Manchester...

Given that my days are now spent with statistics, I have to ask you: have you ever collated exactly figures as to the ratio of knickered vs. knickerless? I'm only interested because I suspect that they follow a Poisson distribution which we might apply to the wider world. It's my hope that your data might prove that we men who 'go commando' are not as rare as the media would have it.

Anonymous said...

I wrote a dozen adoring responses yesterday afternoon but they all sounded sappy so I abandoned them and gave up. Let me just say this is the only blog I read on a regular basis, I can't even think of another that I have read more than a single entry. I don't know who your accuser is but I can tell you that I don't read his blog so tell him to stick that in his ear!
Some people's kids....

Uncle Dick Madeley said...

Okbye, you've made me cry now. What a sweet thing to say. Should the Russians ever break down the door to my hotel room and drag me out into the Manchester streets and force me into women's underwear, your kind words will keep me smiling through whatever terrible ordeal I'm forced to endure in high heels and a brassiere three sizes too small.

Anonymous said...

Lol, if that made you cry you should have seen the one I wrote yesterday. I'll email it to you if you like but I didn't want to post it.