Friday 10 October 2008

Slipping Up On Radio One

You might say that being a best-selling author is all glitz and book signings but let me tell you about the significant chafing around my right buttock which is making it difficult to type tonight. Not only is it typical of the things they fail to mention when you sign your publishing deal but I’m also having flashbacks of the time when Judy and I rode a camel across Southport beach for Granada Reports. Judy thrashed our Bactrian one too many times and I slipped from the second hump. This went out live to the North West and I suffered a terrible wound caused by an impacted mollusk.

This time, the damage was inflicted over a long morning sitting on a PVC chair in a hot Radio One studio while Chris Moyle interviewed me over his breakfast of Sugar Puffs and scintillating wit. It was the latest part of the press junket for my book, ‘Fathers and Sons’ and I continued to rack up the mistakes.

Last week, I told a woman from 'The Guardian' that sherbet was poisonous to tadpoles (it isn’t, I was confusing it with tapioca), and only yesterday I told a crowd of shoppers at a W.H. Smiths book signing that earwigs are the only insect to have an odd number of elbows (they don’t, I was thinking of the Slovakian cockroach). This time, I went and let slip about my blog. Judy thinks it was a stroke of genius. I say it was something much more significant.

It came about because the early viewing figures from ‘Watch’ are only respectable. The pale somewhat beside the figures for the Appreciation Society which is clearly where all the Madeley action is to be found. With readership numbers peaking in the high hundred thousands, it’s here that the hard core Madeley fan comes to smell my musk. And a powerful agent it most certainly is. Moyles was soon under the spell of my aroma. With a large kernel of puffed wheat hanging from his second or third chin, he asked me if I hate Channel 4. It was an unscripted question and I made a glib comment about my blog. You can hear it here (thanks to David over at The Spine for bringing the recording to my attention) or here (about 1h 57m 20seconds) where the BBC have the full show.

‘Brilliant!’ said Moyles.

Well, it was like steaming custard poured on the large pudding of my satisfaction. And as soon as the skin thickened, I set this official recommendation in the middle of a line and pointed at it, thus:

What People Say About 'The Richard Madeley Appreciation Society'
‘Brilliant’ -- Chris Moyles

I came off the show happy but concerned by the damage done to my right buttock by the PVC chair. We Madeleys have always perspired heavily around the flanks but this flood had spread to outlying regions that normally favour dry conditions. The chafing was more toxic that a North American housing market. Yet even as I applied a soothing balm I’d fashioned from the coconut from a dark chocolate bounty mixed with a can of diet Tango (thank you Ray Mears!), I was already having doubts. ‘Well you’ve done it now, Dick!' I thought. 'Your postmodern game of hide and seek has gone too far. This time you’ve locked yourself in the coal cellar and the latch has fallen outside. This is a darkness from which you might not escape. People will never believe in your now...’

Which is why I have to post tonight without a care about the damage I’m doing to the right lower side of the left-hand of the ampersand. I just wanted to let you know that I’m as real as I sit here in my grey flannel trousers, smelling quite manly but vaguely like a taste of paradise. Sorry for what I said and I’ll try to be on my best behaviour tomorrow when I’m off to sign copies of my book for the people of Monken Hadley. Be sure to pop across to Chingford in the afternoon when, buttocks permitted, I’ll be joining other celebrities as we shin up palm trees in aid of the local West Indian community.

[UPDATE: Link now fixed]

9 comments:

James Higham said...

Hope your buttocks pass muster in this next venture.

Selena Dreamy said...

“Your postmodern game of hide and seek has gone too far."

And, no doubt, we can infer anything or nothing from that enigmatic declaration!

But whether Richard’s blog is written entirely by his own hand or edited by a ghost, it still is a remarkable document. Above all, it shows him as an protean character, a man who can clone himself into innumerable personas and - not to mention his bionic endurance - may even be the first celebrity to be found guilty of stalking himself...

Among the mysteries of the blogosphere, the case of Madeley is certainly the most enigmatic...

D.

Anonymous said...

Oh, that's just a waste of a good Bounty,that is. Disgraceful!! :).

- lee

Anonymous said...

P.S. the word buttocks is very amusing and should be used more often.

Anonymous said...

Thought you might like it, Dick.

okbye said...

Well I didn't know who you were before anyway so it doesn't really matter if it's really you or not, lol. I just enjoy reading. I usually hear the author's voice in my head when reading their work so I would feel a little silly if I found out I was hearing the wrong person but whatever, no biggie either way.

And do care for your buttocks, what would you do without them?

Swearing Mother said...

So, Dick, if you're not really Richard Madeley, who the hell are you? Not that it matters really to be honest. A rose by any other name and all that tosh....

Anonymous said...

Brilliant - found it thanks to the man himself making reference to it on the One Show !

Uncle Dick Madeley said...

Barbara, I would use two nicely plumped cushions as a buttock substitute.

Swearing, I'm me and I smell very rose like.

Nice of you to say that, Anonymous, when I'm currently getting emails from strangers telling me to quit immediately. It's all so confusing.