Yang

Yin and Yang. Karma. Or just swings and roundabouts... I've always had faith in the notion that Life has a way of evening itself out. Cosmic Balance. Celestial Harmony. For every new reality TV series written by Jordan's breasts and starring Kerry Katona, there's bound to be something that balances it out. Without at least one Jamie Oliver, we might not have Larry David. For every Crunchie in a box of Cadbury's Heroes there's always a Twirl.

Yet over the course of the last few years, I've begun to think that Life is all swings, or indeed, all Crunchies. There's just far too much Yang in the world. Kerry Katona's face mocks me from the advertising hoardings as I trudge through the waking city centre each morning at dawn. Her down-the-nose sneer is the confirmation of my own hubris. Kerry gets yet another new series while 'Arrested Development', one of the best comedies to come out of America in the last decade, was cancelled part way through the third series. Chaplin is dead. So are Stan Laurel, W.C. Fields, Groucho. Hunter S. Thompson has knocked back his final whisky and P.G. Wodehouse has wore his last spat. It's dangerous having me as a fan. Look at my dear friend Stephen recently run over by a marauding manatee.

Today was another day when the swings won. Yang is laughing at me for believing that at some point, my luck will change, that I will begin to feel good about myself. But what's that you say? “Ah, Richard, don't harp on about how tough things are when the world is full of famine, illness, and people born without elbows.” And you would indeed be right. Statistics would prove that there is a worldwide shortage of elbows and that Yang laughs at other people far more often than it mocks me. But the truth is that I'm too tired to question the self-evident truth that I have really made a mess of things. Judy might land us a new deal after the Channel 4 contract runs out but in the meantime, I'm getting up at six o'clock and getting home twelve hours later after doing some anonymous voiceover work for a cracker company that's only famous in China. Today it was pointed out that I'm not very good at my job. This might well be true. How can any competent man make a mess of the line: 'it's the crazy crisp of the crunchy Chinese corn cracker'?

Tomorrow is another day. Think of me and pray for Yin.

Dr. Oddzo's Shotgun Therapy

Maybe Jesus knows where Bill Oddie found a Remington pump action shotgun. It would be wrong of me to speculate. There was just something reassuring about the way the walnut stock kicked bruises into my hip. I was blasting away at some old oil cans I'd thrown out onto the lake sized pond. I'd been drinking Wild Turkey all afternoon, trying to convince myself that the genial man who hosts a tea-time talk show can really be one crazy son-of-a-bitch channelling the spirit of that other crazy son-of-a-bitch, Hunter S. Thompson. My descent into madness was terminal. It was just a matter of figuring out which way the wreckage would lie.

'You know Bill,' I said as I pumped a few more shells into the breach. 'This is so goddamn right after a long week of feeling sorry for myself. Those bastards at Channel 4 don't appreciate me. The craven heathen pigf****rs.'

'Fire away,' said Bill, 'I was told me that it would calm you down after your battle against your black dog.'

'It's been more like a charcoal grey dog,' I said, reaching for my now underweight bottle. 'But it had rabid bloodshot eyes and drool that could eat a hole through sheet metal.' My lips snatched more whisky before I realised what Bill had said. 'Who told you this would cheer me up?' I asked.

'Oh, this was all Stephen's idea,' said Bill.

'Stephen? Stephen?' I repeated, the whisky having dulled my senses as well as my self-pity.

'He rang me this morning from America where he's filming his documentaries. He told me where to find his old shotgun and he said that I'm to let you fire every last shell if it makes you feel better.'

'That beautiful yet crazy son-of-a-bitch,' I said as I turned the weapon on Judy's ornamental garden and took the head off my least favourite dwarf. 'Die you miserable pot bellied dwarf bastard,' I cried as the air filled with plaster dust.

Bill looked hurt.

'No, no, Bill,' I said, taking my bottle from the floor. 'No offence meant. I was talking to the other pot bellied dwarf.'

'None taken,' said Bill but I could see that my words had hurt him where he lives. His face had that same torn expression it had the time I'd accused him of destroying his reputation inside the BBC by selling his cheap plastic herons.

'The thing is, Bill,' I said, resting the shotgun on my hip as I prepared to oil my temper with more liquor. 'I want to do something wild. I want to prove that I'm more than the man tied to a desk or making small talk between five and six every weekday evening. I think we should take a trip.'

'A trip?' asked Bill. 'A trip where?'

'A road trip. A road trip to Blackpool.'

His eyes lit up. 'There's a fantastic RSPB sanctuary up there on the Fylde Coast. This time of year, we might be able to spot a few of the early migratory waders.'

'I'm not looking to go birdwatching,' I said and lowered the gun ready to menace one of the oil cans that had been foolish enough to resurface. 'I'm talking about us having ourselves a wild weekend of excess in the spirit of gonzo. What do you say, Bill? Are you up for “Fear and Loathing in Blackpool”?'

'Does that mean we'll have to take drugs?'

The gun kicked. The can sang its death note.

'Drugs? Sex? Alcohol? I prefer not to name the vices that work for me,' I said. 'But I do know that I don't need illegal drugs to be reckless and slightly insane. My brain chemistry is a rare mutation of genius.'

Bill sank to the floor and picked up a can of Red Bull. There's nothing more wretched than a caffeine addict swollen with that heinous delusion that they are all powerful. The Greeks worshipped Dionysus for a reason. They didn't have the god of the Genus Coffea in their Rolodex.

'We'll need a car,' he said eagerly.

Luckily, I had it covered. 'Terry Gilliam is a good friend. He still has the Caddy from the film. Convertible in bright red. He'll let us use that. We'll hang a flag from the back.'

'The RSPB crest?' suggested Bill.

'The Stars and Stripes,' I yelled. 'It's the only way to go. From this moment, you call me Richard Duke. You can be my faithful assistant, Dr. Oddzo. I won't be happy until we've got ourselves a hotel suite and smuggled a monkey and a midget into our room and pumped them full of Toilet Duck.'

Dr. Oddzo ran a hand through his beard, his eyes now fully dilated as the Red Bull kicked in.

'I'm with you,' he said and pushed himself to his feet. 'We'll tear Blackpool apart!'

I pushed another shell into the gun, preparing to fire it into the lake, but before I could get my finger around the trigger, Dr. Oddzo had snatched the gun from my hands. That crazy bastard. The spirit of his age: a worn down stump of high living on BBC expense accounts yet a beautiful last hymn to the Sixties.

'Head down, Corbett!' he scream as he fired shells into the neighbour's bedroom window. Glass shattered. The shreds of net curtains floated down like confetti.

'Gonzo!' cried Dr. Oddzo, that twisted version of the human prototype as he ran back up to the house.

'Too crazy to live, to rare to die,' I muttered as I followed after him.

The New Regimen

After two weeks living according to “the new regimen” I've come to the conclusion that I'm in desperate need of good luck and for my life to change. Tickle an Oddie by the chin and you have a happy man. Only not every man can be pacified so easily. We Madeley men are of bulkier intellectual stock. As Judy and I compete for the literary honours, I've taken an early lead. My new novel is 20,000 words long and Judy is lagging far behind. Yet in the time I've been away from you, I've been feeling utterly miserable. It's been going on for too long. I need to vent.

You might have noticed my silence on the blog and the less-than-stellar performances I've been putting into the afternoon show. I'm finding it difficult to blog. I lack the usual spark. Does it have something to do with the ongoing problems of my one-handed assistant? Oddly enough, I don't think it does. Is it Stephen's absence from my life or the solitary habits of Oddie when spring approaches? I think it more likely. But I also suspect that my 7AM starts are destroying me. 'Eye of the Storm 2' has the mendacity of a flesh eating virus. I find that I struggle through days caring less and less about the world around me. There's a grim satisfaction in climbing in bed at night, so tired that my worries won't keep me awake and happy that the virus has left me with my limbs.

I suppose there's no disguising the indignity of the work, of the place where my talents have brought me. I want to get back to being the old Richard, writing too much and telling you all about my days spent in celebrity adventure. I really do. Instead, I've taken to secluding myself at night in the garage where I've started to hatch plans. I'm slowly turning into Elberry but without the intellectual vigour to accompany my moods. This work breeds solitary men with grievances who bookmark the addresses of mail order retailers who sell hunting knives and crossbows.

Denis Adrift

The poor man. I've spent the better part of a week outside the room in which Denis has been sectioned for his own good. I'm not a man given to hyperbole but in this
instance I might say that the good friend we have all come to know and love had finally lost his marbles, gone cuckoo, drifted beyond the land of sanity and found himself shipwrecked on the Isle of Potty.

Not that anybody has missed me (well, perhaps a few of you) but the reason I've been so quiet for the last week is that I've been busy caring for Denis. It's the very least I could do given that the man has no family. I also felt a little to blame for the incidents that led up to his being institutionalised.

I should have acted on my suspicions. My Madeley Sense began to tingle when Denis first told me that his greatest ambition in life was to sail around the world single handed.

'Have you any other choice?' I asked.

He took my quip in his usual good spirits. Judy later claimed that she'd found him weeping in the stationary cupboard but I happen to know he sneaks in their for a quick snort from his hip flask. I suspected that what to Judy sounded like sobbing was merely a man gargling throat tonic.

'Does Denis seem okay to you, Richard?' she asked two days later.

I admitted that I thought he was just a little temperamental.

'But he's never shown a sign of being interested in sailing,' she said. 'He asked me this morning if I knew any good yacht clubs.'

I told Judy that I wasn't going to question Denis' interests. Anything that distracted him from his darts obsession was good with me.

Then, early last week, Judy again found him in the stationary cupboard.

'He's spending a lot of time in there,' she told me as we ate lunch that night.

'Let's not complain,' I answered. 'He obviously feels comfortable in there. It's rare that a man finds somewhere where he feels at home.'

Judy was adamant that something was wrong. 'He was looking at maps of sea lanes,' she said.

'So long as he wasn't reading the Peter Manley newsletter, I really don't care,' was my reply.

Half past ten on Tuesday morning, we had a phone call from the police. Apparently, Denis had put to sea on a raft built from cardboard tubes made seaworthy by numerous wrappings of brown masking tape. They'd traced Denis back to us because he'd used a large cardboard cut out of my lofty self as a mast. It's no idle boast but he'd been picked up adrift off the coast of Spain.

'You should have seen this coming,' said Judy as we drove to the hospital.

'I should have seen this inevitable lull in my blog ,' I replied. 'I haven't got time for Denis and my readers. One or the other of them will have to suffer.'

And unfortunately for you, Denis has been my priority for the last week. I'll be keeping an eye on Denis but I'll try to fit this blog between trips to the hospital and my ongoing work on 'Eye of the Storm 2'.

On Stephen's Podcast

A sleep has rid these bones of the aches and shivers brought on by two days in a cramped recording studio and other associated duties of a man employed by others for tasks not of his own choosing. Damn it all to hell and back. This is no life for a monkey. Not even a handsome monkey with an artificial mane culled from the heads of Taiwanese virgins.

I'm now bound to a different kind of desk; one piled high with good books and assorted manuscripts of my own terribly overactive imagination. To tell you the truth, I'm feeling quite relieved this morning that friends haven't exposed confidences. I've just chuckled my way through the first of Stephen Fry's podcasts. Not that I found his quite obvious pain funny. I was merely relieved that our adventures together had been compressed down to his confession that he 'spent time with friends'. I'd been sent a warning earlier in the week that the podcast would be appearing but my work commitments stopped me writing about it as I normally would. If my first thought was a quite selfish one about exposed confidences, my second was the worry that there would be many more contradictions from the version of the Great Man's story I'd already published. In the end, I think our two narratives join neatly together. Indeed, as neatly as two pieces of bone held together by screws and plates. The only point where our stories diverge is in the moment of the accident. Naturally, Stephen displays Stephen's usual forgiving nature and lays no blame at the hand or flipper of the manatee. I think we all know different and should continue to show our support for the man by continuing our reverse boycott, by buying all goods made from the manatee.

Listening to Stephen has also given me new ambitions. The last two days of hard work pales when one considers Stephen's schedule. I would offer to take some of his duties from him but I fear he's protective of the little niche he's made for himself as the nation's most ubiquitous fitting, suitably for schedules both evening and daytime; bathrooms and kitchens too, I imagine.

All of which has inspired me – if that's the right phrase – to be more productive. There's nothing like a spell of toil to stiffen the resolve. That's why this is a shorter than normal post from me today. I have something much larger I want to work on. You may get to see it in good time. You might not. I might release it anonymously to the underground and let it become a cult classic among bikers and university drop-outs. Do I hear you ask me about a title? Well isn't that obvious?

'This is no life for a monkey.'

Eleven minutes to go...

Denis has failed me again and I've only got 11 minutes to post something for today, Tuesday.

With so little time, I have no chance to detail my day's discoveries beyond saying that my false nose and black beret continued to confuse commuters as to my real identity when I mixed with them on the 7.35 train this morning. They also failed to recognise me on the 5.34 train home. Unfortunately, I fell asleep in the armchair when I got in and Judy also failed to recognise me. Or that's what I suppose is the reason why she laid into me with one of her golf clubs.

My next stint as a commuter is eight days away. I guess you'll just have to suffer my being around. Tomorrow, I'll be up bright and early and hope to write you something to make up for my two days absence.

Things I Have Discovered Today

You may have woken up this morning and been somewhat surprised to read the headlines on some newspapers claiming that Judy and I are in negotiations with other TV channels to continue our domination of tea-time television. Had I read that John Wayne was in negotiations to continue his domination of the lawless West, I couldn't have more surprised. Unfortunately, I'm in no position to either confirm or deny the rumours of the £4 million deal. Judy handles the financial arrangements and I've been too busy today working on 'Eye of the Storm 2'.

Why this particular show should involve my staring at Word documents for eight solid hours and fixing other people's grammar and typing mistakes is too long and arduous to go into here. Let's just say that it's part of the magical mystery of television that you viewers rarely get to see. That the documents have more to do with the Leisure industry of North East England is similarly confusing. However, the day has been one that has blessed me with much in the way of new knowledge.

I have discovered that:

* The average wedding the UK costs over £18,000 and has approximately 106 guests.

* A man is foolish should he try to sail his yacht into any harbour of North East Scotland when there is a strong wind blowing from off the sea.

* A 5% rise in the seasonal visitors to a certain holiday camp in East Anglia would produce a sewage problem should there be an unseasonable amount of rainfall.

Other remarkable discoveries I've made today include the fact that all six feet and two inches of the Madeley frame are not suited to life hunched over a keyboard for eight hours. It explains why I've just had Judy walk barefoot over my back to iron of the kinks. It also came as something of a surprise to learn that in the course of negotiating my contract with the producers, I'd failed to establish that my eight hour working day didn't include lunch. My day is really nine hours, or eight and a half if I can ram a pickled sandwich down my throat in the Starbucks across the road from the production offices.

I must finally say a word about the nation's railways. When they next decide to cancel an eight AM train, could they give me more warning? Having gone to the trouble of wearing my false nose and beret, it's galling to have to spend an extra half hour on the platform worrying that people might recognise me from the TV.

I'm now getting to bed. I have to be at the offices tomorrow for eight o'clock to ensure that I can beat the rush hour traffic at the other end of the day. A false nose and beret are hardly adequate protection against flailing elbows of rival commuters and tonight's train was so crammed, I found a businessman's sweat stained armpit placed conveniently under the end of my nose. I can't be sure that my plastic proboscis didn't begin to run and my beret droop.

Good Heavens! Gnats and Transvestites on a Sunday!

If somebody hadn't typed 'do gnats have feelings' into Google or I hadn't been forced to intercept misdirected visitors looking for 'blogs for men attracted to transvestites', I might not have updated today. Search engines bring in such a range of people with unusual tastes that it's hard to know how I should respond to them. Yes: gnats have feelings. In fact, they are very sensitive to criticism. No: I don't know any blogs for men attracted to transvestites. Nor do I know of blogs for men attracted to gnats or whether transvestites have feelings.

I do know that I'm very busy preparing myself for two tough days of voice-over work. Unless I can hammer out a few words when I get home late tomorrow night, you shouldn't expect to hear from me until Wednesday. This is the price we must pay for ensuring that crusts are earned, nests feathered, livings made. I might get Denis to write something in my absence but, after his first attempt, I'm wary about giving him the blog's password.

If gnats, transvestites and one-armed assistants aren't odd enough for your Sunday, I've had an email to ask that I help promote the campaign to award Petula Clark a damehood. Although I don't own any of her records, I do know that she recorded a few of Serge Gainsbourg's songs and, by doing so, helped promote the work of my hero and role model. For this reason alone I think she deserves recognition, though you might want to recognise her for founding one of the best high street shoe shops.

While I was on the Downing Street website I tried to register a new campaign to reward Stephen Fry with a knighthood only to discover that a petition already exists.

I wouldn't mind but I'd already had my local graphic design company produce a logo for my campaign. I must now reconsider whether I should work to endorse the existing petition or start one of my own to have Bill Oddie recognised for the work he does on behalf of owls. While I'm away, I want you to give this some thought. I like the idea of making Bill this year's charitable cause but I fear that, although he's a bigger celebrity than Stephen inside the UK, Oddie would not reach out to an audience in the wider blogging community. I'm tempted to offer Jeremy Clarkson as a compromise candidate. What do you think?

It's A Bumper Search Saturday

It's been a particularly profitable week in the world of odd search terms. Google have been sending people my way looking for everything from haemorrhoid creams to naked historians. As is my habit on a Saturday, I'll try to explain why I think people search for these phrases or I'll give you such a learned commentary that you'll feel obliged to take an evening class at your local college where you'll become involved in a mad passionate affair with your tutor, leading you to a mad flight to Brazil where you'll find yourself alone and penniless and picking up tricks in downtown São Paulo. Eventually you'll meet a eye-patch wearing German doctor who offers you sanctuary in exchange for strange sexual favours involving a Peruvian midget called Hector. After months in the heat, listening to Edith Piaf on a scratchy gramophone while having treacle licked off your knees, you will eventually earn enough to pay for a flight home, an older, wiser, and sticker person. But you'll thank me for it in the end. Enjoy.

Tips to get a good tan

After you've covered yourself in sun cream, smear yourself with real butter. David Dickinson taught me this one so you can imagine it's as top a tanning tip as tanning tips can get.

Is Louie Walsh rich?

Yes. He's the richest man in Ireland. In fact, he's so rich he doesn't keep all his money in the bank. He plants little bags of coin beneath mushroom rings across the county of Tipperary.

Richard Madeley impressionist

I'd sue if there ever was one. Not that I don't see the appeal of pretending to be me. You would be loved by woman and feared by children and old people.

Dennies Richards nude [sic]

The spelling mistake makes this a tough one to call. There was a time when any red-blooded man would search for Dennise Richards before retiring to bed every night. Then she married Charlie Sheen and she lost her sexy. However, if you were searching for Denis Richards nude, that's a different matter. There was a historian called Denis Richards but I don't think he ever posed in the nude except for the cover photo of his 1945 biography of Thoreau.

The French they are a curious race

France is full of some of my favourite people, though many of them lost their sexy after they married Charlie Sheen.

Tunisian word for 'whore'

The word you're looking for is 'qattous', which, roughly translated, means 'everybody loses their sexy after marrying Charlie Sheen'.

Richard and Judy cushion

You wouldn't believe the number of times I've been asked if we have any cushions in our range of Richard&Judy merchandise. It's easy to see why some of you would only feel happy sitting on my face.

Richard Madeley is annoying

Guilty as charged but I like to think of it as a nice version of 'annoying', easy to warm to like my slight eccentricities like keeping a wild Bill Oddie in the house and my incessant need to promote the blog of a man much greater than myself.

Sexy Vanessa Feltz

Well, that's it then. The End of the World as predicted in The Book of Richard. When those three words comes together to form a complex statement like that, Doomsday can't be far behind. It's been nice knowing you. Do you think they have blogs in heaven? And do you think everybody will still read Iain Dale? And if so, why so?

Potted history of custard

Ah, the delights of a Daily Mail-type pun! What do you want to know about custard? Invented by the Romans, it was not until the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus that custard was flavoured with vanilla. In 2007 it finally eclipsed rice, becoming the world's most consumed food.

Robert Madeley Appreciation Society

One thing you can't deny about Robert Madeley is that he's not humble. Imagine creating an appreciation society to honour yourself!

Haemorrhoid Cream Sandra Bullock

Are we to read into this that Sandra Bullock has haemarrhoids as well as a comical last name? Are we to believe that this complaint might run throughout all the Bullocks? And might there not be a Bullock cream to alleviate the suffering? I would like to know.

Vintage Lawnmower Appreciation Society

Appreciate those vintage lawnmowers, appreciate them!

When are weekends in Tunisia?

Bloody good question. I rang the embassy and they tell me it's all day Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons after 2.

A.A. Gill Starbucks Cappuccino

Mr. Gill's annual report into the Starbucks' Cappuccinos is one of the most eagerly awaited reviews of the gastronomic year. 'Bloody awful' he declared in 2006. 'Somewhat milky' was his opinion a year later. This year's lucid commentary is 'frothy'. I can hardly wait until 2009.

Was Dennis Wilson circumsized?

I imagine at least one man called Dennis Wilson was.

Are prunes good for singing?

Yes. They increase your vocal range by doubling the number of orifices through which you can produce notes.

Why is Chuck Norris always happy?

Because he's one kick happy guy!

Parky's chocolate

It's true. To mark his retirement, Michael Parkinson is launching his own range of chocolate, specially designed for people who can't chew sticky foods.

Jamie Oliver black eye

Poetry. Pure poetry.

Eric Clapton dentures

Sure you're not confusing him with Chuck Norris?

Is a man wearing a skirt wrong?

I should say it bloody well is!

Dave Dickinson paint jobs

This was news to me so I went down the road to ask him. I can now confirm it. David Dickinson has started his open painting and decorating services. His rates are reasonable so I've asked him to do our dining room. If you ring him, mention my name. He'll do you a 10% discount.

A Day With The Writer's Market

After spending the last eight hours thumbing through the 'Writer's Market 2008' (forward by Peter Ackroyd), I've condensed over 50 pages of details for the nation's literary agents into one helpful pocket-sized listing. All you ever need to know about searching for representation is summarized in the following. I suggest you send them your manuscripts immediately. I know I have.


The Geoffrey Pinfrock Agency
14 Duntcare Road, London, L1 7RF

Contact: Geoffrey Pinfrock, Harry Grebe (historical and biography), Andrew Tinkle (fiction).

Established: 1952.

Insider Info: We specialise in fiction and non-fiction. We are on the lookout for bright undiscovered writers. Although we are renowned for taking raw talent and helping them to reach the next stage of their publishing career, we would much rather head-hunt a few established writers from other agencies whose percentages we are happy to undercut by a few points.

* Geoffry Pinfrock became a literary agent after a long career as a successful novelist, penning three books set around the Swahili Swamp Fever epidemic of 1873. Our agency is proud of its reputation as a relaxed environment where Geoffrey takes a hands-on approach with all new female clients. Charges of sexual misconduct and serial groping are routinely dismissed before our famously long liquid lunches.

Non-fiction: Considers anything with a celebrity face on the cover. No academic books unless it is accompanied by its own series on the BBC. No nature books unless your surname is Oddie. No books about poetry unless your name is Fry.

Fiction: Considers action/adventure, humour (not satire), mystery, romance (no pornography), thrillers, contemporary fiction (but nothing set in Ireland involving peat). We are actively seeking new novels about the angst of simple middle class London folk who work in a creative field such a publishing and turn to the booze and drugs as a form of escape.

Submission guidelines: Do not send manuscripts. Do not contact us via email, post, or carrier pigeon. Approach us in the first instance through a friend connected with the industry or an established name. We will not reply to you unless you're already known to us. Do not approach us in person. We own a bloody big dog who has a taste for human blood.

Clients: Victor Occram Jnr., Horace Tadpole, the estate of Sir. Henry Sellinger Pfnnar.

Tips: No unsolicited submissions, letters, or emails. To make yourself known to us, you should be either be a published author who we already represent or related to a published author who we already represent. People know to us are welcome to make themselves more known to us. The rest of you can just hop it. And yes: that includes you.

Please note: we are not accepting submissions at this time. All manuscripts will be burned on our open log fire while we sit around cackling as we warm ourselves by the heat of your fading chances of publication.

The Richard Madeley Guide To Annoying People: Lesson Number 1. Forgiveness

'Listen, don't worry,' I said. 'I forgive you.'

'What?'

'I forgive you. I just thought you should know that.'

'Yes but you've forgiven me for what?'

'Forget about it. I've forgiven you and that's all you need to know.'

The man looked at me square in the face.

'But I don't want your forgiveness,' he said.

'But you have it. We Madeley men are a forgiving breed. You can't take it away from us. Forgiveness is in our blood.'

'So you forgive people even when they don't need your forgiveness?'

I smiled in a way meant to assure him that whatever he could do, I would still forgive him.

'Look,' he said, his now face flushing hot red. 'I knocked on your door and asked you if you wanted double glazing...'

'That's right.'

'And you said, “no thanks, we're not interested”.'

'Right again.'

'And just as I was turning away, you said what exactly?'

'I said that I forgive you.'

'So you're forgiving me for knocking on your door?'

'I can forgive you for that as well if you like,' I offered, cheerfully.

'I really don't care,' he said, perspiration breaking out on his brow. 'I just want to know what I'd originally did to warrant your forgiveness.'

'Does it matter now that I've forgiven you? You should just feel relieved.'

'But I've done nothing to you!'

'That's the spirit,' I cried and began to shake him by the hand. 'Forgiveness cleans the soul. Doesn't it make you feel whole again?'

He grabbed his bag and turned his back on me. 'Absolutely mad!' he cried as he reached the garden gate. 'You're absolutely mad!'

'Don't worry,' I shouted after him. 'I forgive you for that too.'

With that, I closed the door and began to luxuriate in that feeling of undeniable pleasure that comes from forgiving people. But if you doubt me, that's alright. I forgive you too... No, no... I really really do forgive you.

Be My Valentine...

In The Land Where The Cheggers Dwell

The adjustments I've been making to my sleeping pattern have left me suffering terrible bouts of narcolepsy. As soon as I stop moving, my eyes close and I'm asleep. And little do I care where I land. Since I started to get up earlier in the day, I've been found sleeping behind the sofa, in the laundry closet, and nestled at the back of Judy's clothes cupboard. As I move on with my plan of getting up an hour earlier each morning, the narcolepsy seems to be getting worse.

'I think you should go back to bed,' said Judy at eight o'clock this morning. I'd just fallen face first into a bowl of cornflakes and only the years Judy spent as a life-guard saved me from the milk I'd sucked into my lungs.

'No, no,' I replied, 'I'll be quite fine. I can't feel as tired as this all day. I just need a little fresh air.'

'You're going to look a mess for this afternoon's show.'

I couldn't deny that but I was in mood for giving up. Madeley will need to be heading into the city at seven thirty on Monday and I want to be doing so after more than a couple of hours sleep.

With that in mind, I resolved to ensure that I would wide awake for five o'clock this afternoon but physically tired when it came time for me to retire to bed an hour earlier tonight. I changed into my tracksuit and went out the front door, fully intending to jog five miles down the road and back again.

The enterprise began quite well. I turned right at the front gate, ran down past David Dickinson's place, and then peered up Michael Palin's drive in the hope of seeing him, despite the rumour that he's currently walking barefoot across Australia for the BBC. Then I was skipping past Trevor McDonald's house and then gave a wave to Clive James who was washing his car. I then carried on down to the cheaper end of the street. It's rare that I go that far on foot. The problem of living in a strictly hierarchical neighbourhood such as ours is that there are always people on the lower levels who demand something from those at the top.

Today was no exception. I'd just run past the house owned by the neighbourhood recluse who used to be Shakin' Stevens when I heard a voice shouting me.

'Richard?' squealed a scouse accent. 'Hey! Richard? It's me!'

I turned around in time to see Keith Chegwin leap a low privet hedge and come running after me.

I might be prone to rushes of serotonin to the brain but I was not without certain emergency functions. Before I could consciously issue instructions to my legs, I was running the other way.

'Richard! Stop!' came another appeal. 'It's me. Cheggers!'

If you know anything, you'll know that Madeley hates men who refer to themselves in the third person. I looked over my shoulder to find that Cheggers was pursuing me but I was relieved to see that he wasn't gaining.

'What do you want?' I shouted but not lessening my stride.

'Any... chance... for five... minutes... on... your show?' he asked.

'Not a chance,' I shouted.

'But Cheggers has got... a... new... computer game... coming out...' was the rather breathless reply.

'A computer game?'

'A... showbiz... trivia... game...'

For a moment, I thought about stopping to learn more but then I remembered that chatting with Cheggers usually involves him telling you the story about when he presented a show nude on Channel Five.

'Haven't got time, Keith,' I shouted as the thought of Keith's shrivelled genitals encouraged me to pedal my knees faster.

'But it's on the Wii...' shouted Cheggers, the last syllable draining out into the silence of my eventual getaway.



Deciding not to risk another encounter with Swap Shop's scouse siren, I took the long route home, cutting through the estate where most of the Radio 4 lot live. I was quite relieved when I spotted John Humphrys who allowed me to take a short cut through his garden and to climb the wall that separates his apple orchard from the bottom of the Madeley estate.

When I get into the house, I mentioned what Cheggers had told me about his computer game.

'I think we're missing a trick here, Judy,' I said. 'Here we are spending time with our clubs for books, wine, cheese, and nuts, but we're catering to a vanishing audience. We need to start appealing to younger viewers.'

'We're not having a video game club,' she replied.

'No,' I said, 'but I thought we could easily have a Richard&Judy video game.' I looked towards the Xbox 360 that Stephen Fry had bought me for Christmas and I wondered if 'Zorg the Destroyer' would have any advice about my idea of making the jump into the virtual world.

'I'll ring Stephen this afternoon and see if he can think of any genre of game that would suit us,' I said as I sat down on the sofa and pulled off a shoe. 'I think a first person shooter based on the Richard&Judy formula would rocket to the top of the video games charts.'

Judy might have answered. I really can't remember and I haven't got time to go and ask her to repeat herself. I only woke up ten minutes ago with one trainer still on my foot and the other propped beneath my head as a pillow. I must now go and wash and change. I also have to get rid of the large Nike logo that's now embossed on my cheek.

You can't believe how strict they are at Channel 4 about produce placement and advertising.

Hairy Parakeets

Cartoons have lied to me all these years. Whenever Tom needed to keep awake all night while hunting Jerry, a pair of cocktail sticks were all that he need to keep his eyes open. When I tried it, I did nothing but skewer flesh. Light is now leaking through a gaping hole in my right eyelid. I'll never get to sleep...

As you might know, I'm mid way through a week long programme designed to change my sleeping hours. Work begins on 'Eye of the Storm 2' at 8am on Monday morning. I need to be ready for the new hours but it is leaving me with the confusion of the truly sleep deprived. It's now midnight and I feel enormously tired when I would normally feel like working. I'll get to bed shortly in the hope that eight o'clock tomorrow morning, I'll be back at this desk full of the usual Madeley spirit and able to do justice to all your excellent comments that I've so far failed to acknowledge with a reply. At the moment, I'm typing this through a matter of trial and error, slapping my hands against the keyboard in the hope that some of this is making sense.

It again makes me wish that I had the sleeping habits of Bill Oddie. The man snoozes through winter and then doesn't take a moment's rest for the remaining nine months of the year. Which reminds me that I saw him tonight on BBC2 getting excited by a colony of ring necked parakeets in the heart of London. The whole thing was pornographic in the extreme and I should have a word with him. Slow motion scenes of bird on bird action left me feeling quite disturbed. Or disturbed because it was actually quite stimulated by Bill's voice over. I don't know which. Should the ornithology not work out for him, I'm sure he'd be a success narrating smutty educational films. I do know that when Judy walked in to find me cooing on the sofa and stroking a cushion, I felt like I'd been caught loitering in that section of the bookshop which carries only books with oiled torsos and biker hats. Which, funnily enough, also happened to me today... I can't understand the rationale that they put authors with surnames WXYZ next to the shelves of erotica. It's getting to the point that a man can't go into a bookshop to purchase some P.G. Wodehouse or Tom Wolfe without looking like he's investing in 'The Wrench Wench: Tales of a Plumber's Mate Volume 7'.

I'm getting to bed. I'm rambling more than usual and I know that I'll probably dream about well-oiled parakeets with big hairy moustaches.

The Richard&Judy Nut Club Launch

Last night I dreamt I went to Madeley again...

It was always going to happen. I'd eaten too much cheese at the Grosvenor Hotel, London, where I was attending the launch of our latest project. I always dream about myself when I've overdone it with the cheese. It is a little known fact that I am one of the few men to whom curd is a mild form of hallucinogen. Unpasteurised milk is known to make me very happy.

The event began in earnest at eight o'clock when we arrived by limo. Our PR people quickly ushered us onto the stage where we were to make the official launch. Though I say it myself, I looked a superior specimen of manhood in my crushed velvet evening suit with purple cummerbund. Judy radiated beauty in a crimson dress of my own design.

'Hand stitched,' I announced to the photographers below the stage as I lift up the hem of the dress to be sure the cameras picked up all the detail.

Once the bulbs stopped flashing and Judy has finished blushing, it was time for the speeches. With my usual reticence, I went first, ad libbing the whole thing.

'It's an absolute pleasure for us to be welcoming you here, isn't it Judy?' I said. 'We know how much you've all enjoyed our book and wine club. Last year we launched our cheese club which has also been a huge success and we hope that tonight's launch will see the Richard&Judy Nut Club become a national institution. A bit like Judy, really... I know Judy wants to say a few words but it falls to me to thank you all for coming this evening and to promise that, in the future, when you think of the Richard and Judy show, you'll think of nothing but nuts.'

It was then Judy's turn to say a few words. As usual, they were scripted and she'd spent the whole day memorising them.

'We know there are many people out there who, either through poor education or a scarcity of resources, do not eat nuts as part of their daily diet. With our club, we hope to make this country a nut loving nation once again.' She smiled at the crowd before somebody handed her a big set of ceremonial scissors and she cut the ribbon.

Unknown to the crowd, the ribbon was connected to dozens of sacks of walnuts and brazils hidden in the ceiling. Once Judy severed that cord, thousands of free nuts came raining down on the crowd. Unfortunately, before I could work out what the screaming was about and why people were calling for an medical help, I had to introduce the evening's special guest.

As you might know, only this Christmas, the pressurised shell of a walnut exploded in Ronnie Corbett's lap, leaving him with severe lacerations to his golfing tweeds and a fear of all large nuts. You can imagine the response of the crowd as Ronnie came out on stage. And when he cracked his first walnut since his accident, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

The rest of the evening was taken up with a healthy combination of wine, cheese, nuts, and the smell of antiseptic cream rubbed into minor bruises and grazes which as few claimed were caused by Judy's stunt with the ribbon. It was good to see our friends and family relaxing, sharing our love for good food. I hope you all will follow our example.

Details about The Richard&Judy Nut Club will be available shortly at www.richardandjudysnuts.com.

The Great Natasha Kaplinsky Hunt

I thought it odd when I turned on the computer this morning and discovered that my blog had been overwhelmed, not by people seeking Stephen Fry's encounter with shrivelled reindeer glands, but by new visitors looking for pictures of 'Natasha Kaplinsky without makeup'. It set me to thinking.

'Have you ever heard of such a thing?' I asked Judy who was kneeling before the fireplace, chiselling off dried mortar from the new hearth she'd fitted a day earlier. 'Judging from this interest in pale, un-rouged skin, I would think that we could make a fortune if we could get a picture of Natasha Kaplinsky with a little less colour in her cheeks.'

Judy dropped her lump hammer and turned to me. 'Richard, are you sure that this is the most profitable way of spending your Tuesday?' she asked. 'I thought you could help me come up with some questions to ask tonight's guest, Kerry Katona, who will be joining us in the studio to talk about her new reality show, “Kerry Katona: Crazy In Love”, in which Kerry and her husband, Mark Croft, offer an insight into their extraordinary lives.'

I gazed at my poor darling wife. It never ceases to amaze me how easily she drops into autocue mode.

'Sorry,' she blushed. 'I did it again, didn't I?'

'You certain did, Jude. Perhaps we should continue this conversation after the break?'

She touched a hand to brow and shook her head sadly. 'I don't know what happens. I suppose it's just instinct after all these years. I can't wait for the Channel 4 contract to end so I can get down to Cornwall and start writing my novels.' A sigh and she looked up at me. 'But what about you, Richard? You've still not answered my question. Are you going to help me write some questions for Kerry?'

'Not if she were the last guest on earth,' I replied and vengefully dug a paper knife into the day's mail. 'You know how I feel about her. I don't at all see what's so extraordinary about her life? Has she ever had a great thought or written a line of prose or poetry enough to make a nation weep? Does she have any skills other than those of self-promotion and overindulgence? I've said it before, Jude, but we should be promoting people who deserve our help. Not these examples of British trailer trash who hardly know what it's like to go out and earn money through the hard graft of their own labours. No, no, Judy. You'll have to write the questions yourself. I'm going to spend my day trying to earn an honest wage. I'm going to sneak into Channel Five and snap a covert picture of Natasha Kaplinsky before they've heat sealed her inside a mixture of pancake and wax.'

Judy waved her chisel in the air. 'If you think it's worthwhile, go for it, Richard. But don't expect me to help.'

'There's no need for you to help,' I said. 'I have plenty of friends who will be more than willing to track down Natasha Kaplinsky. There are men out there cast from the same mould as your husband. Men who consider hunting newsreaders as the noblest of the sports left to us since we've been banned from shooting elephants, white rhino, and tiger.'

'So it's a surveillance operation?' said Clarkson half an hour later when I rang him. 'If it is, then count me in. It'll give me chance to try out the new night vision goggles I bought off eBay.'

'No need for night vision,' I told him. 'This will be a daylight raid into the heart of the Five News operation. I'm going to see if Bill Oddie will let us borrow his camera with the lens specially designed for taking surveillance pictures of sparrows at close range.'

'Why not bring him along?' asked Jeremy. 'We might need a man whose beard has been specially trained by the SAS to sneak through undergrowth.'

I explained how Bill and his beard were still suffering from their wounding by an errant heron. 'He's back with his family but he still claims to feel discomfort whenever he gets near an estuary,' I said.

Jeremy rang off having agreed to meet me at twelve, and, sure enough, a few seconds before noon, I heard the distant bang as the sound barrier was breached by a land-based rocket car. Jeremy arrive a second later, the shrill whine of his jet engine fading as he climbed out. He was dressed in combat trousers and a safari jacket, a fact which caused me no end of amusement as we began to pile equipment into the back of the Range Rover and then set off into central London and the promise of big game.

Being two 'A' list celebrities, we can get access to places that are restricted to you normal untalented folk, no doubt stuck out there in your humdrum existence of commuting into Manchester or Glasgow, and working a long day full of office routine. You won't know the thrill of breeching a nerve centre of the nation's communications. One such place is the studio for Five News. It's run by the people at Sky News from their headquarters in Osterley, Central London. We parked out front and decided to try the direct approach by blagging our way past the guard at the front desk. He was the typical guard, proud of his job. His jacket was emblazoned with the insignia of News International and the the Bob Friend Memorial tie pin gleamed near his throat.

'We're here to do an interview about our new show,' I told him.

'Oh,' said the guard. 'And what's that all about?'

Jeremy, quick on his feet as ever, replied: 'the Welsh.' When pressed and nervous, he usually mentions the Welsh. I suppose that, psychologically, the Welsh are Jeremy's comfort blanket, though I don't know why...

'The Welsh?' replied the guard.

Jeremy just smiled. I could tell it would be left to a man of real imagination to fill in the detail.

'Jeremy and I have been travelling Britain together, filing a new series in which we wryly comment on the nation's musical tastes. We began with the Welsh and their unhealthy obsession with male choral groups.'

'Very good,' whispered Jeremy.

'Welsh choral groups?' repeated the guard.

That's when Jeremy piped up. 'The show is called, “Good Vibrations With Richard&Jeremy”,' he said.

I made a point of jotting this idea down. Jeremy might not see much potential in it but I certainly do.

The guard, however, was somewhat suspicious. I could tell this by the way he picked up the phone and began to mutter something to his superiors. However, a few minutes later, a call came through and he reluctantly gave us to visitor cards.

We'd reached the first floor when Jeremy dragged me to one side and behind a large cardboard cut out of Kirsty Young marked for recycling. He nodded towards a set of doors marked 'Staff Only' at the end of the corridor.

'We go through there,' he said. 'I've been here before to plug my Christmas DVD. That way leads to the dressing rooms.'

'But we don't even know if Natasha is in the building,' I said. 'We should make some casual enquiries first.'

Jeremy placed his big hand on my shoulder. 'What kind of man comes on a hunt and doesn't know the habits of his quarry? You don't think I didn't come prepared. Before I left the house I rang Jeremy Paxman who told me everything we need to know about Kaplinsky, such as the fact that she rarely leaves her dressing room. She'll be in there now, resting before tonight's show.' He nodded again at the doors. 'Come on, follow me.'

I trailed after him as he crept down long dark corridors. Finally, he stopped outside a door marked 'Talent'.

'This is it,' he said. 'This is where they keep her.'

'Keep her?' I was very cynical, as would you should you know that your actions are being governed by information gleaned from a man called Paxman. 'You make her sound like she's an exhibit...'

Before I could finish, Jeremy threw open the door and I began to realise how little I know about the world of TV beyond Channel 4.

The oxygen tent filling the room was glowing a vibrant pink. Soft furnishings filled it like a sack of cotton candy and giant marshmallows. The fur from creatures whose natural camouflage was pink was spread across the mattress while lying amid the flowers, feathers, and throw cushions, was a figure of sublime beauty, her thin features cleansed of artificial colour.

'Is that her?' I whispered.

'If it's not,' replied Jeremy, 'we should watch out for seven malicious dwarves coming back from diamond mining duties.'

'But won't she wake up?'

'Not during daylight hours,' said Jeremy, who for some reason was opening his satchel. I was a little surprised when he pulled out a foot long stick sharpened at one end and a wooden mallet.

'What's that for?'

'It's just something that Paxman asked me to do,' he smiled the nation's favourite Jeremy.

I was in no mood to question the agreements made between BBC men. I pushed the lens through an opening in the oxygen tent and fired off a few snaps.

'We should get out of here,' I said.

Jeremy lingered, weighing the stake and mallet in his hands.

'Come on,' I said, grabbing him by a curl, 'we need to get out of here before we're discovered and they force us to make them a show. You don't want to be on Fifth Gear do you?'

That seemed to do the trick. His shoulders sagged and he followed me as we retraced our steps out of the building. Five minutes later, we were sitting in the Range Rover. I was checking the pictures on the digital camera while Jeremy kicked the gears into four wheel drive and ploughed us through a hedge and out onto the open road.

'These photographs will make us a small fortune,' I promised him.

Jeremy just looked vaguely out at the road ahead. 'I though I could do it,' he muttered. 'I thought I could do it... And I've missed my chance.'

'Don't worry,' I said, looking at the stake and mallet sitting on the back seat. 'If you're still in the mood for adventure, come along to the show this afternoon. I could do with a man who knows how to wield a mallet.' I looked again at the wood steak. 'I do think we should stop off and find you a bigger big of wood. It's one thing hunting a woman like Natasha Kaplinsky but I'm now talking about an evil that roams the Earth by day...'

On The Melancholic Reindeer Herders of Northern Finland

'Ah, hush yourself!' I beseeched the voice on the telephone. 'Were I a man with blood of the thinner mix, I would say “allay yourself” and that this assignment is not for me. But, as you know, Richard, I am a man with blood the consistency of Yak's milk. I am perfectly suited to any mission that calls for a fleecy thermal cape. Tell me the details of my task and I'll commit them to memory before eating my own cerebral cortex to destroy the evidence. Direct me hither and hither will I fly. '

'Well,' said the source of this very special journalistic assignment, 'we need information on the current state of mind of Finland's reindeer herders, ASAP. Column inches need swelling with firm reindeer facts, Stephen, and you are the man to swell them. I want 1000 words by tomorrow midnight.'

'Then I need to rush,' replied I and saved myself a second or two by hanging up the phone without further fuss.

The call had come from London and the offices of Richard Madeley, talk show host, friend, and sometimes muse to the humble 'I' of this piece, known as Fry. From what I had picked up from Richard's often incoherent instructions, it was felt by those 'in the know' that my psychological qualifications and tolerance for cooler climes made me the perfect celebrity for a mission deep into that land of the Finns which has so quietly been living under the assumed name Finland for these few years past. Fortunately, your exquisitely attired Uncle Stephen was also the man in the right spot. I was in something of a pickle. An American pickle to be precise. My broken arm had been causing me anguishes of a most unwelcome right-handed kind during my taxi tour up to the Great Lakes. The thought of a trip to a country more hospitable to my leftward leaning frame was so appealing as to make a man end a paragraph with a colon and a cry: lawks!

Eight hours later, a small plane brushed the frigid thigh of a runway in the small town of Sneiggur, fifty miles north of the Arctic circle. It was around midnight by the time I emerged at the rank of taxis and identified my guide and helper waiting for me there. He introduced himself as Olaf Ffnneer. In my mind he was a man so small as to render him a midget by the American scale, though in a Europe, with our lax height restrictions, he was merely a small man. However, for the sake of simplicity, I would think of him as 'Olaf the Small' since small he was. And bless him for being so.

'Welcome to Finland,' he said, his accent all ankles on a slippery run of iced vowels. 'Do you have any luggage?'

I parted my cape and handed him the large trunk that was concealed there next to my iPhone and the Browning revolver I was packing in case of Polar Bear or marauding Moomin.

'Then this is good,' replied he of the scant elevation as he slung the chest over his shoulder and sank in extra inch or two into the snow. 'We get a taxi to the hotel?'

I waved him on with my good arm and he trundled off towards the lead taxi whose twelve carnivorous engines were already howling with excitement at the through of a quick mush across the Finnish tundra.

Mush! Mush! Mush! How exhilarating it was to have the wind whip my cape about me at we raced through the Arctic night. Half an hour later, I climbed from our sled and walked into the cool reception of the hotel.

'This is the world's only permanent ice hotel,' said Mr. Ffnneer as he walked beneath my trunk.

'Were I a man give to exclamations of astonishment, Mr. Ffnneer, I would say “cripes” at sight of such cleverly sculpted ice.'

'You get some sleep,' said Mr. Ffnneer, as he dumped my case at the flurry of a front desk. 'Tomorrow morning I will take you to see reindeer!'

What man can sleep well with such a promise? I woke around nine o'clock eager to start the day. I opened my curtains to a fine morning in Finland: the moon high and the streets in semi darkness. I decided to forgo my sun block and wrapped an extra scarf around my damaged arm before venturing out onto the frozen corridor. A maid on skies smiled as she passed me, yodelling a promise to turn down my bed once she'd finished the laundry slopes.

After a quick breakfast of fried herring and herring tea, I accompanied Olaf the Small to his sled, which I was relieved to see had well blubbered runners. It was a point I make to my guide who blushed with Nordic pride.

'Our seals have the finest blubber,' he told me as he cracked his whip and two small Finnish ponies began to trot before us. As you know, your Uncle Stephen is not one to doubt another man about blubber. Nay it is and thus it always was. Blubber.

The rural community of Gnnrr Fritter lies about five miles outside the town of Sneiggur, which has the unique distinction of owning the most northern reindeer herds in the world. Mr. Grindle Gfffffffr, the chief of the herders, welcomed me with civility and presented me with the traditional gift of a polished reindeer hoof with the blond braids of his virginal daughters wrapped around it.

'Your reindeer are blessed with fine hooves,' I told him in my fluent Finnish. 'And only a cynical man with inside information could question the virginity of your daughters.' I sipped the hot herring oil from the hoof before I handed it to Olaf the Small. The formalities out of the way, I turned to speak with the leader. 'I'm here to understand why you're all feeling glum,' I told him as he began to serve me a bowl of freshly made herring soup, with some pieces of sautéed herring topping herring bread.

The lead herder listened to me as he scooped his herrings. When I was finished, he smiled and placed his hand on my knee. Soon I would learn exactly what it was that made Mr. Grindle Gfffffffr feel so down.

'Have you ever tried to milk a reindeer's teat in sub zero weather with gloves on, Mr. Stephen?' he asked me. The Finish language, so heavily reliant upon the pluperfect tense and ninety seven conjunctions of the word 'chilly' cannot be translated so easily into English and carry the real despair of the question.

'I say I haven't,' I replied, 'but I'm eager to have a go.'

And have a go soon I did. And I can report that the experience did not live up to its billing.

At the insistence of Mr. Grindle Gfffffffr I hurried up eating my herring dessert before I followed him out of his tent and across the snow to his stock of three thousand reindeer. A stool was produced from I know not where, on which I was instructed to sit while a female creature was roughly herded before me.

Mr. Grindle Gfffffffr pointed me to the creature's hind belly. 'Fondle' he said in Finnish, 'fondle' being the closest translation I can get to the words 'fnooorrffr'.

'I'm beginning to feel mildly disappointed with the world,' I admitted later on. After half an hour spent fumbling with a cold shriveled gland, I had liberated half a thimble full of reindeer milk.

'And that is why we are a sad nation,' said Mr. Grindle Gfffffffr. 'I ask you, Mr. Stephen, how we can be happy when out animals teats are left so shriveled by the ice and the snow?'

And there, Richard and my dear readers, you indeed have the answer you so desperately crave. You who are, even now, warmly wrapped in the embrace of your familiar fold; you whose teats are as big and as bountiful as ever: know the truth. Call it a plump or slightly overweight truth, or a slightly obese truth wheezing with glory, but Finland is a fine nation with men and women who suffer much in the cause of the reindeer. Mark my words: frozen teats and thick gloves do not an agreeable partnership make. Shiver!

The Week Ahead

As you might have noticed: it's Sunday and I'm still in a sombre mood after a tiring week behind the scenes of both the blog and TV show. You'll just have to excuse my lack of fizz today in the knowledge that I've got something a little special to post tomorrow when another of my regular guests will take over for the day with a feature article. I can't say too much about it as the man has yet to submit the final piece, but I'm sure it will live up to the usual high journalistic standards I expect for contributors to this blog. I've also decided that Dennis will have another attempt at writing for the blog towards the end of the week and I can promise that there will be no mentions of either darts or Peter Manley. I can also state with confidence that this week, The Richard Madeley Appreciation Society will be a stump free zone, so, please, no more letters of complaint...

If there are any other celebrity friends you think I should ask to write for me, you should really suggest them in the comments and I'll see what I can do. Not all agents are willing to put my requests through to their clients, but I know a few celebrities personally and might be able to offer them ten minutes on the show in exchange for a couple of thousand words.

Which reminds me to tell you to watch out for the announcement this week that we've got a few big guests coming on the Channel 4 show. He's not yet been confirmed by we're hopefully getting Oscar hopeful, Daniel Day Lewis, into the studio to give us some cobbling tips, while later in the week Johnny Depp will be in to teach Judy the Hollywood secrets of how to clean mildew from between bathroom tiles.

As you can see, guys, it's going to be an exciting few days.

Nude Harold Wilson.... Sorry!

If you're wondering: I asked Dennis to add a rabbit to save Mr. Wilson's modesty. I want this point to be clear before I go on. Saturday is the day I usually take for a long earned rest and I'm in no mood for answering questions about why Harold Wilson has got genitals in the shape of a red rabbit. Instead I want to spend my time reading. I've bought a few new books which are now sitting by my favourite armchair and intend to get at least one of them finished before sundown.

As usual, I'm posting cheap filler material in the form of the best search terms that have brought readers to the blog this week. As is my custom, I'll try to figure out what they were searching for and I'll do my best to answer their queries.

Nude sorry Harold Wilson

This has to be the week's oddest search term. Luckily, I have a picture of one of the many times that our late Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, was caught in the nude. He was always very apologetic and I think that the rabbit proves my point.

Is Richard Madeley Jewish?

Depends what you're really asking. If you're asking if I'm circumcised then I'd have to ask you: does an accident involving a set of sheers count? If you're asking if I read the Torah regularly, then no, I'm not Jewish. I'm CofE with mildly orthodox Catholic leanings that have to do with my love of baroque church architecture and the writings of Pope Julius II.

Richard Madeley is an idiot

Depends what you mean by 'idiot'. Am I flawed? I would say so. Am I wiser and more knowledgeable than 99.9% of the British public: absolutely.

Richard and Judy baldness

And not for much longer! My hair is growing at a remarkable rate. I think taking some of Judy's old HRT medication has helped too. The early indications were that I was growing breasts but that, thankfully, is no longer the case. I remain a manly B cup.

Judy's tits at the Brits

Hard to know what to say to this one. She took them with her, if that's what you mean.

Which cartoon animal whistled through its teeth?

Easy: Dangermouse.

Richard Madeley's qualifications

Eight 'O' levels, a clutch of 'A' levels, a couple of degrees, and an honorary Ph.D. in Advanced Biomolecular Engineering.

Terry Nutkins with a beard

I have a photograph of this too.

Prunella Scales topless

Unfortunately I don't have this picture.

Pointless Stephen Fry links

You mean like this one?

How tall is David Dickinson?

This old chestnut? Little Miss Sunshine is 5' 11” tall, which you would know if you keep refreshing this page to go through my bestiary.

Richard Madeley is a twat – sorry the only way I could find your blog

That's okay, stranger. Whoever typed this in to Google gave me the biggest laugh of my week. And, when you think about that, you'll see why I'm having a day off. It has been a bad week for Madeley.

A Dennis Update

This morning's early rise had done nothing for my mood and I had hoped to catch a bit of shut eye this afternoon before I recorded tonight's show. The last thing I wanted to do was spend my time pondering whether on not to give Dennis his notice. Of course, he did the usual craven things to stay in my employ. He fell on his knees and begged me to let him keep his job. His one hand clawed ineffectually at my trouser leg as I walked away but I was not going to be swayed. If there's one subject in the world that is sure to get my temper up it's the subject of Castro and Cuba. Second to that is darts. It's a pernicious evil that threatens to reintroduce bad shirts and jewellery for fat men.

Now that I'm home and I've read your appeals on Dennis's behalf, I've changed my mind. I'll ask Dr. Raj to have a word with him and disillusion him about Peter 'The Hedgehog' Manley and Phil 'The Power' Taylor. After all, the unfortunate introduction of darts into this blog was partly my fault. Richard 'The Master' Madeley shouldn't have promoted Dennis so rapidly through the ranks. There were others who could have filled in for me today. I could have called in a favour from Jeremy 'The Rocket' Clarkson and had him write me something. I could even have pressed Martin 'The Professor' Amis into producing a small piece to make up for spelling Lola's name wrong in the interview I published earlier this week.

So, those of you who supported Dennis can rest easy tonight knowing that you've saved a one-armed man from the unemployment queue. Naturally, I would have replaced him with somebody with two hands, so, in terms of limbs, you've stood in the way of a real world decrease in the number of idle hands. You might want to think about that the next time you take the side of a man who whispers whenever he mentions Jockie Wilson's name.

Disgusted

I've just got back home from my meeting with the people at the production company . We decided that since it was Friday we'd have an early finish to the day. My mood was upbeat until, quite frankly, I saw what Dennis has posted to my blog. I'm now off to get a spot of late lunch but I'll be back to put this right.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that I'd employed somebody so cretinous as to write about darts. And I told him not to mention his stump but he seems to have done so on nearly every line.

The Peter Manley Appreciation Society: A Touching Tale Full of Human Interest

I first met professional darts player, Peter Manley, about a month after a basking shark bit off my left hand and most of my lower arm.

It was my trauma therapist who suggested that I look for some new hobbies. Before the accident, I'd been a semi-professional snooker player with a nice sideline in knotting novelty balloons for children's parties. I was also earning a good living by working in the applause department at the BBC. It was my job to provide the clapping that make their comedy shows seem funnier than they really are. I sometimes imagine what my life would be like now if I still had that job. I reckon I'd be earning a small fortune on 'Little Miss Jocelyn'...

Obviously, having only one hand meant that my life as a snooker-playing, balloon knotting, professional clapper would come to an end. I even had to leave my part-time job working for my girlfriend's fashion company where I modelled mittens. With the snap of a basking shark's jaw, my life changed forever. I couldn't even use the accordion I've played since a child.

Any person who has undergone such a dramatic change knows how difficult it is to find new interests. Luckily for me, the job came along working for Mr. Madeley who was very understanding about the problems I face. With what the forty pounds he paid me each week to work as his P.A. and the money I had collected by selling my old accordion and balloon pump, I soon began to build myself a new life. I've taught myself to use the yoyo and to play the harmonica. I also began to amass what has become the country's finest collection of Anna Nicole Smith memorabilia in the country. Some people call it pornography but I always say that Peter Manley has breasts and that doesn't make him anything to be ashamed about. And he's certainly not better looking that Anna who was so tragically taken from us recently.

Peter has been my saviour. The biggest obstacle I faced was finding a sport I could fit into my evenings and it was the sight of Peter at the ockey that saved me. Darts became my refuge from the hard work days at Channel 4. I scored my first 180 within a week of taking up the game and my three dart average is now regularly in the high 80s.

When people ask me where I see myself in ten years, I say: working the darts circuit as the country's only one-armed darts professional. Peter Manley is the man I want to become. He's obviously a bit heavy on the butter in the morning but I think he fills a shirt better than anybody since Anna posed in those ads for Guess jeans. It also makes him one of the most economically successful darts players. If I can pile on a few pounds, I'll make a fortune. That's what Peter has taught me. A big gut leaves plenty of room for advertising. Some people say it's a bit ironic that Peter Manley's right tit is sponsored by a scaffolding firm. I say it's good business sense.

They Call Me Dennis

Mr. Madeley rang me a few minutes ago. It was well after midnight and he sounded very anxious and, in my opinion, somewhat intoxicated.

'Dennis,' he said. 'I'm worried about tomorrow. I hope you're not going to write about your disability.'

I told him that I had intended to write about the last five years working as his assistant. 'You might call it a disability,' I said. 'I prefer to call it a wage trap.'

'Oh, no,' he replied. 'I don't want you writing about your life with me. You know all of my secrets.'

'Not all of them,' I said. 'Just the ones that involve lubricants.'

Now before you get any funny ideas, that bit about lubricants was one of my little jokes. I have lots of them. Well, you have to, working for a man like Mr. Madeley. Life is not easy. I can tell you that. Besides... even if I do know most of Mr. M's secrets, I wouldn't dream of writing about them here. Not when I could get good money for the serialisation rights.

'That's not funny, Dennis,' said my employer. 'You must remember to be discreet. You're writing for a public audience. This blog goes out under my name so don't go offending anybody.'

'Don't worry, Mr. Madeley,' I told him. 'If people want to know about heat rash from polyester or a certain person settling out of court when nuns accused him of indecent exposure, they'll have to go elsewhere. They won't get any of that from me.'

'That's good to hear, Dennis,' replied Mr. Madeley. 'But I want to give you some advice. If you have to write about... you know... your hand... then don't go mentioning your stump. It's not appealing.'

'It's not meant to be appealing,' I told him. 'It's just who I am.'

He sighed. 'Well if you must talk about it, can't you make it sound positive?'

'Positive?' I asked.

'Give it some human interest.'

'Righty-o,' I said. 'Perhaps I could give it a name...'

He thought for a few moments. 'I can't see how that would help.'

'It would make it more human. It would have a personality of its own. I could even drape a puppet over it. Of course, I wouldn't be able to make it talk or move and it would have to sit somewhat moribund on the end of my arm...'

'Disguising an amputee's stump with a paraplegic puppet doesn't sound the way to go to make your first blog post light and breezy, Dennis.'

'I'm not technically an amputee,' I replied. 'It was...'

'Yes, yes, I know,' he interrupted. 'It was ripped off by a basking shark off the coast of Cornwall. Look, Dennis. This is your chance to shine but don't get too comfortable. You're only filling in for one day while I'm earning a few shillings. Next week, I'll get one of my celebrity friends to write something longer. You know, something with a bit more meat on the bone... In the meantime, just write something interesting. Something that the educated people who read my blog would enjoy.'

'I know just the thing,' I told him. 'Just you wait until tomorrow, Mr. Madeley! I'll have your readers eating out of the palm of my hand...'

Introducing Dennis

It will come as no surprise to many of you to learn that I'm not always me. Sometimes I'm Dennis.

Dennis is my P.A., or, as he likes to describe himself, my Personal 'Attendant'. He attends to all the jobs I have neither the time nor the patience to do myself. Sometimes it's Dennis who types up my posts and publishes them when I'm busy with the show. You might say, therefore, that Dennis is my extra set of legs. He's also my third arm, but, I hasten to add, he's not my fourth. Dennis has only one arm. In fact, he's one of the few one-armed P.A.s in the country, which makes him half a P.A., or an 'A' as he likes to joke.

Dennis has a unique sense of humour about his disability, which is the way he says you have to be. Not many men have had a limb bitten off by a basking shark off the coast of Cornwall and I doubt if there's another man who can laugh about it as much as Dennis. It's what makes me feel so certain that you'll like him. However, a word to the wise: Dennis' involvement in my blog explains why there are often so many spelling mistakes and typos in my posts. You may think you're correcting my poor spelling but you're really making a one armed man feel bad about his disability.

I've decided to introduce you to Dennis because tomorrow I'll be going to meet the team who will be working with me on 'Eye of the Storm 2'. There's already talk of 'Eye of the Storm 3' and 'Eye of the Storm 4', so this job will be consuming two days of my week from now on. Should I disappear for 48 hours, I'm hoping that Dennis will help keep this blog going. Being a one armed man, he will probably be writing posts that are considerably shorter than my usual pieces. I hope that Dennis will become to this blog what Nige is to Bryan over at Thought Experiments. Or that's how I explained it to my little one-armed helper this morning.

'Dennis, would you relish the opportunity of doing some extra typing each week?' I asked him as he began to clear up after the first production meeting of the day.

He looked at me from under his heavy brow and grunted.

'Is that a good grunt or a bad grunt?' I asked.

He put his one, lonely, solitary hand in his pocket and adopted the look of a suitably unimpressed one-armed man.

'I take it that you don't want to hear what I want you to do?'

'I'm not writing your blog, if that's what you're asking,' he said, forgetting for the moment which handsome Channel 4 type pays his wages.

'You've done it before,' I said. 'There are many times you've transcribed pieces from my Dictaphone.'

'But you get all the credit.'

'As it should be, Dennis. As it should be. You can't honestly believe that people should credit you for transcribing the words of a man with the full compliment of limbs?' I rubbed my face, which was aching at the cheek of it all. I could see that I would have to compromise if I wanted my plan to go ahead. 'So, would you do it if I told people of your existence? Perhaps I could give you a regular column in which you'd get to talk about life from a one-armed point of view.'

He shrugged but his face couldn't conceal a fleeting look of excitement.

'That's better,' I said, 'but if you're going to have a more visible presence on my blog, we have to make some ground rules. Take a note, Dennis. Head the list: Things That I, Dennis, Should and Should Not Do When Writing on Richard's Blog.'

'Fair enough,' he said, his hand coming out of his pocket and taking a pad and pencil from his desk.

The list took half the morning to compile but I present it to you as a way of filling the blog while I now go and practise my documentary voice.

Dennis's List of Things He Should and Should Not Do When Writing on Richard's Blog

1. Don't annoy the punters. Americans don't like too many references to Stephen Fry or obesity.
2. Don't provoke the visitors to any online forums dedicated to 'The House'. They will hunt you down, Dennis. The last time, I was lucky to get away with only three crank phone calls and a jiffy bag full of rabbit excrement.
3. Try to promote Jerry Caesar's blog whenever you can. I'm tired of being the only person to leave comments over there.
4. No posts about disability rights.
5. No posts about Esther Rantzen. I don't care how wonderful you think she is, Dennis.
6. Don't flirt with Selena Dreamy. If you had three arms you still wouldn't have enough.
7. Don't mention Finland to Ax unless you speak the language.
8. Don't provoke Mutleythedog. He is not a dog and probably isn't called Mutley.
9. Do not disillusion Bertas. She still thinks that Norwich is a good holiday destination.
10. Remind The Twitch to keep taking his mood medicine.
11. No name dropping. People cannot stand it when a blogger casually drops the names of famous people they have met into their blogs. Stephen Fry doesn't do it so neither should we.
12. News about Stephen Fry takes precedence over any other. Then it's Bill Oddie followed by That Man Clarkson. News about Jeremy Paxman can be posted if there's nothing better to do.
13. Respect Judy at all times. Remember: she pays our wages.
14. No jokes about one-armed bandits or any other kind of bandit.
15. No pictures of naked one-armed women.
16. Remember that people are here to read about me. I, Richard Madeley, should appear in every one of your blog posts. As should a completely superfluous link to Stephen Fry's blog.
17. Never mention your stump. People aren't interested.

'In The Tabernacle of the Bald God' by Martin Amis

Richard writes: "When I drunkenly stumbled into Professor Martin Amis at Maureen Lipman's cheese and wine party last month, I was ready to blame an excessive number of elbows in the room for my slight trip. The last thing I wanted to do was pay for the dry cleaning of an expensively ruffled jacket and corduroy trousers. I needn't have worried. Martin laughed off the stain, which he said delighted him because it was the same shape as the mole on Philip Roth's thigh, and instead asked me for an interview. The deal was struck there and then, and this is the result."

An aluminium bullet propelled me from Manchester to London. It carried the cordite stench of the intercity commuter train; a two hundred mile per hour slug rattling around the cranial cavities of canting fools whose scything fingers lay waste to lines of unkempt prose and words that die minuscule deaths between the covers of business reports, feasibility studies, and the cadaver-like morbidity of the end of year accounts. Solzhenitsyn one wrote of the moment when the 'soul, which formerly was dry, [...] ripens with suffering'. I was about as far from the Gulag Archipelago as you could get but I was also on my way to watch a man ripe with rich agonies of his very own.

An hour later, I'm sitting watching cameras shuffle softshoe across the floors of a subdued studio in South London. I've become enchanted by the insoluble piety of the place. At my side, sits a devote woman and her flask. She is knitting a cardigan big enough for a Sherman tank. She tells me that her name is Brenda before she turns to me, mid-purl. 'It's for Richard,' she says, her breath scorched by hot Darjeeling. 'He always looks so cold.'

The Richard in question is Richard Madeley, talk show host, polymath, and the man credited with the discovery of butane. 'That was many years ago,' he smiles when I later remind him of his origins in petrochemicals. 'I was trained as an organic chemist. Judy says it's now chemistry of a different kind but I still find it odd to be working in daytime television. I miss my pipettes.'

I want to tell him that he does more than work in daytime TV. To women like Brenda, he is the daytime. Though not for very much longer. He has invited me here to record the end of his decade-long imprisonment. I'm there to act as his witness: to sit and attest to his virtue in this tabernacle built for Brenda and the other knitting Gods of Middle Age. Bearing witness would be easier if the master of the television talk shows approached his premature retirement with a little more dignity.

I had found him stalking menacingly at the fringes of a circle of producers. Richard is a beast of capacious energy, occasionally lashing out at any who dare invade his space. One of the show's researchers runs away, her sobs echoing long after Richard had rebuked her for bringing him Marmite instead of coffee. Caffeine is his drug of choice. It's why I took my seat beside Brenda. Caffeine addicts are better left in their zone of jittery expectation. An hour later, I'm still there, watching Richard finish another show.

'Great show, guys! We should get that paraplegic brass band on again,' he announces as he drops down off the set and waves me over. His wig has slipped. I haven't the heart to tell him. Friends had advised me that he's a man whose vanity gorges on his charm. He lives an eccentric's life; dashing between emergencies as unnatural as his brow that never sweats, even when layered with a hairpiece weaved from the bristles of a mildly albino badger. On the phone earlier that morning, he had explained how Stephen Fry had helped him shave his head during a orgy of Taxi Driver and drunken self-loathing. In the flesh, this Travis Bickle has a cheerful, matter-of-fact voice that allies itself with the twinkle in his eye. He's a man fit for psychotic episodes. His humour attests to it in every act of passive aggression. When not directed at himself, it yawns in the face of absurdities that surround him. I tell him that he reminds me of Normal Mailer.

'When I started out, I only wanted to write like Mailer,' he tells me in his changing room. He has a habit of saying things he thinks other people want to hear. He knows I write novels so I'm treated to the Richard who should rightfully have won the Nobel Prize for Literature. 'Mailer was a model for how I've lived but my novels are more like something that Saul Bellow would write. Who would publish them? I'm not Jewish enough to be properly recognised as a Jewish novelist.'

I ask him how Jewish he is and how Jewish he wishes he was.

'I'm not at all Jewish,' he confesses. 'Except when I write. Judy compares me favourably with Howard Jacobsen. So does Howard Jacobsen. Howard Jacobsen thinks I'm Jewish.'

It's ingratiating and I'm tempted to ask to see the manuscripts. Does the man have prose as tight as the skin of his forehead? I feel almost transparent beside him; a glyph of anti-health and tobacco rot. Bellow would find it amusing watching this man freely handling his pelt while claiming to be the literary success to Herzog and Augie March. I want to tell him this but Richard's mind is already elsewhere. A parcel has been delivered to the door and he cannot wait to open it.

'Another stuffed heron,' he laughs, perching the cheap doll on the hardwood cliff of his table. 'It's for Bill Oddie. Ever since I mentioned that he's been speared through the thigh by an errant heron, his fans have been sending me these.'

It's clear that fans mean more to Madeley than he admits. To him the recognition is more than cant. Fans are important to the mystique of the man who lets it know that he wears no underpants and never locks the bathroom door. The psychology of the anal retentive is like cheap aftershave and it would be an insult to accuse him of wearing it.

'My fans tend not to come out in daylight,' he laughs. 'I'm not a fashionable wit like Stephen Fry. It's why I'm so often misjudged and people don't like me mentioning my friends in conversation. I don't know what people expect: that celebrities don't live near each other? That men like Stephen wouldn't search me out for a game of Scrabble. Some people find it difficult to believe that Ronnie Corbett lives next door. If I ever wrote that over forty celebrity friends live within a mile of our house, I'd be crucified.'

Crucifixion focuses his eyes and subconsciously he rubs stigmata on his palms. Would it be too easy to say he has a Christ complex? It's the interviewer's prerogative to avoid asking difficult questions when you feel an affinity for a subject. And it's hard not to feel for Madeley. In Manchester, delivering my yearly lecture to young writers, somebody had mentioned the blog that has become a byword for self-destructive journalism. It's called The Richard Madeley Appreciation Society. Humble it is not.

'Writing my blog has allowed me to reach out to people I'd normally cross the street to avoid,' he says. 'A few are a little psychologically unbalanced but I find that's the world. On some days, two hundred people drop by and read about my life. I love them all. Even those that drop by to call me a twat...'

A tear pools in his eye. Pure liquid sympathy. I dare not put it to him that two hundred readers are a piffling number, especially when most of them are there to abuse him. Reading through the names of his regular visitors is like reading out a roll call for a multiple personality disorder. AxmxZ, Selena Dreamy, Elberry, Hope-Athlete, Mutleythedog, Lola, Bertas and The Twitch. I suspect they are all the product of a single mind. When his contract ends, I expect the inevitable breakdown to begin with the cry: 'I am Richard Madeley and I am legend'.

Ruefully, he pops a pink bonbon in his mouth and I hear it crack between white porcelain before he begins to talk of Bill Oddie with great affection. His regard for his celebrity friends marks Richard out as something more than a good guy. He's a patron saint of lost comedians, failed and forgotten actors, and the detritus of showbiz.

The enigmatic hold that Bill Oddie has over Richard's career cannot be fathomed in the time I had with him. All I can do is tell him about the moment my own father introduced me to The Goodies. Kingsley called them 'Britain's response to Baudelaire' but my teenage sympathies lay eastward. There was never any doubt to an impressionable teenager that Bill Oddie was the voice of the anti-establishment and that his comedy was a vehicle for radical liberalism originating behind the Iron Curtain. In his bright red dungarees and lime green vest, he influenced me more than any other artist. I was seduced when still pubescent by guns firing tomato sauce and enormous cats. Later, when on the nadir of my own greatness, Bellow and Updike would efface Oddie from my life. In Madeley, I see a man who chose a different path. Young Amis smiles from his eyes and expresses it better than ever I can.

'Bill's a brainy little gnome,' he says with obvious affection.

I want to tell him that the brainiest little gnome is sitting before me, adjusting the wig on his suntanned brow. In this world of febrile sensibilities, where fashion is as disposable as the cant, Richard Madeley is the last link to homo celebritus. The moment passes too quickly. A knock on the door and I'm introduced to Judy, who doesn't seem to recognise the genius she berates for wearing his fly wide open.

'She's always telling me off about that,' he said, tucking himself away.

'Don't worry,' I reply. 'Norman Mailer always had the same problem. It's what comes of being a great Jewish novelist.'

Tight

I can’t write today. My brain wheezes along like a wheelbarrow full of asthmatics and it feels like we’re approaching a hill.

Dave Gorman is on tonight’s show so I’m gripped by this morbid fear that he’s going to outshine me. I had the same worry when Aled Jones came in the studio and we sang hymns together. Of course, on that occasion, my fears were groundless. Since his testicles dropped, Aled’s not been the singer he once was, while I’ve developed quite a fine voice which some compare with that of Pavarotti in his prime.

My fears that day were also related to my phobia of the Welsh, but, today, it’s my fear of comedians. I have the same problem when Charlie Brooker’s in the building. My sphincter goes so tight that I can’t even get a pencil up there. Luckily, I can think of only three reasons why I’d want to put a pencil up there and none of them involve either Judy or the sofa.

In order to get my brain working, I’m going to go and have a warm bath. It should relax me before the show. I’ll try to write you something for later on.

The Good Push

With the new week you find a new guest at the Madeley home. Bill Oddie’s come to stay with us for a couple of days while his leg heals. As you might have read, poor Bill was accidentally skewered by an errant heron last week. I don’t want to get into the medical details of his wound but I will say that he still has three inches of beak still buried in his right thigh. Walking is now difficult for him and he's troubled by these strange cravings for freshwater fish...

If you think that an accident like this would dent a man’s love for his avian friends, you don't know Bill. It has, however, disappointed him in other ways, such as the lack of fan mail he’s been receiving, or not receiving as is the case. But as I’ve been trying to explain to him, we celebrities have allowed ourselves to be treated as something other than human. It’s only natural when people forget that we need love and encouragement like everybody else.

Take this poll I've been reading about this morning. Doesn’t it prove that we British are a credulous lot when large portions of our fellow countrymen believe that Winston Churchill was a figment of some writer’s imagination? They also think that Sherlock Holmes was a real turn-of-the-century detective. Among the other famous figures who many believe are myths are Richard the Lionheart and Charles Dickens. The report doesn’t say where Madeley ranks, though I know that many people think that I don’t exist, despite the evidence of this blog and my daily appearances on Channel 4.

And this is the point I was making to Bill. The fact that the public confuse fact and fiction is perhaps a reason why we’ve never had the revolution I’ve been hoping for these last few years. I don’t mean to overthrow wealth, or anything as trivial as that. I mean the moment when the great British public dispel the illusion of British Media and start to support projects like The Richard&Judy Show which are the product of real talent.

‘There’s something abhorrent about this country,’ I said as I pushed Bill around the garden this morning in his wheelchair. ‘Nepotism strikes at the heart of everything we try to achieve.’

‘That reminds me,’ he replied. ‘How’s your daughter, Chloe, doing with all those reporting jobs you’ve been giving her for the show?’

‘Don’t talk about family, Bill. You know I won’t and don’t. And, quite frankly, I don’t see what that has to do with my comments on nepotism.’

‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘Don’t know what made me ask. Perhaps I thought it significant…’

I decided to ignore his comments as the ramblings of a man high on painkillers and beak. Besides, it was irrelevant to the point I was trying to make.

‘I was watching the BBC news the other night and they had a guest reviewing the papers. I thought her face looked vaguely familiar and, sure enough, I soon realised that it was Boris Johnson’s sister. Odder still was the fact that she was there, on national TV, criticising MPs for hiring their family.’

‘I don’t see your point,’ said Bill.

‘I can’t even get a job writing film reviews for The Leamington Observer, but the Johnson family alone account for half the column inches written in the nation’s broadsheets. A mere coincidence? I think not.’

I could tell by the way that Bill’s ears began to flush that I’d roused him.

‘Damn them,’ he snarled. ‘Tell me what we can we do about it?’

‘What indeed?’ I asked and lay a reassuring hand on his shoulder. ‘But the problem doesn’t end with the talented Boris Johnson and his equally gifted siblings. I turned on BBC2 last night to watch “Ski Sunday” thinking I’d be in for some high-speed piste action. Only, what did I find? That they’d changed the format of the show. No more can I watch David Vine having fun at the expense of foreigners have big spills on lethal seventy degree slopes of blue ice. Instead, they’d dropped some fashionable young type on the top of a mountain and the whole thing has become a festival of celebrity. The licence fee is now being used to give celebrities free ski lessons. I don’t know about you, Bill, but I resent my money going to teach Ben Fogel how to knock a few seconds off his slalom time.’

Bill went quiet as he watched something through his binoculars. Finally, he lowered them and gestured for me to push on which I duly did.

‘You see, Bill, I’m a man who likes to think that we get where we’re going on our own power. Celebrity connections are one thing but is there anything as sad as watching a celebrity pushing the career of a friend or relative?’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Bill, suddenly struggling in his chair. He threw aside the rug that had been across his legs and pushed himself to his feet. ‘I thought you were trying to tell me something.’

Hobbling, he began to head down towards the lake.

‘Where you going?’ I shouted after him.

‘I’m going to see Stephen Fry,’ he said.

‘He’s in America.’

‘The other Stephen Fry,’ said Bill. ‘And you needn’t come. I can get there under my own power. After all, there’s nothing as sad as watching a celebrity pushing around a friend.’

Overwhelmed with fondness for the poor fellow, I smiled as I slowly followed after him. There are times when helping a friend is the best thing that a celebrity can do. Especially when that friend has beak shaped shrapnel.

Down An Oddie Hole

A snarling wind whipped across Heathrow’s runways and caught a tearful me on the mezzanine where I was stood, frantically waving towards the last glint of light leaving my life. At my side was Judy, eating a hot dog, and as Stephen Fry’s plane took off, she muttered something darkly about my devotion to the person I’ve come to know simply as ‘the Great Man’.

‘I suppose this will turn into another of those blog posts where you bore people silly with your attempts at wit,’ she said as the plane tipped skywards.

‘It will be a post like… whatever…’ I replied, adopting the vernacular of the slightly lost and bewildered.

‘Now don’t you get American on my arse,’ snapped Judy. ‘You know this is for the best.’

‘For the best?’ I gagged as the wind tried to shove the words back down my throat. ‘You’re just glad to see Stephen gone from my life because a few Americans accused me of banging some joke into the ground. What do Americans know about comedy?’

She wiped mustard from his cheek. ‘Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Seinfeld, Frasier, Cheers…’ began Judy, throwing back my own words at me.

I gave her a rueful look. ‘I’ll show you,’ I said. ‘I’ll write a blog post that pushes the envelope of what it means to be postmodern by being utterly self-referential and full of wry allusions to contemporary British culture.’

‘Your Wogan is slipping,’ said Judy between mouthfuls of dog.

So it was. I readjusted my wig to the angle of the full sexual come-on for which I’m so well known and as Stephen’s jet disappeared behind a cloud, I turned my back on him. I would live the next part of my life as a more handsome version of a man called Bertie without his Jeeves.

When I got home, my mind soon turned to the question of what we were to do with the spare room. I’ve grown accustomed to hearing the warbling of a rich baritone singing Wagner up there every morning. Many a night I would quietly slip from my bed and go and play Scrabble with the Great Man. Even now, as I sit and write in my office, I’m tempted to pull my chair to the window where I’d helped transcribe the three novels you’ll see published under the Fry name in the coming months.

It was an hour after we’d got home that the aroma of pipe tobacco excited my nose to the point where I could no longer concentrate on my writing. I climbed up to the spare room and found Judy lying on the bed smoking her pipe.

‘I thought you’d given that up,’ I said.

‘I’ve got the taste for it again,’ she said as she flicked through a magazine that Stephen had left behind.

‘I know the feeling,’ I admitted, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking the magazine from her hands. ‘Cape Wearers Monthly... He’s promised me a subscription and a starter’s cape when he gets back. Admit it, Judy. We're both going to miss him terribly.’

‘That may be so,’ she replied, ‘but I think you should forget all about Stephen and pay as much attention to some of your other friends. I've not heard you once mention finding out how Bill's doing after his operation.’

I dropped Cape Wearers Monthly as if it were advocating the return of the nylon cagoule.

‘Oddie’s had an operation?’

The briar bowl connected to Judy’s lips flared once before she let it slip into her hand. ‘You mean you don’t know?’ she asked, using the pipe’s stem to punctuate her words. She shook her head sadly. ‘This is what happens when you devote yourself so wholly to one friend.’

‘Yes, yes,’ I snapped, grabbing her free hand. ‘But tell me… What’s up with Bill?’

‘Don't you know? He’s been speared by an errant heron,’ she said and puffed again on the briar.

‘That terrible news…’

‘It is, and I’m glad to see that you’re shocked. Perhaps now you’ll think of visiting him…’

‘Of course, I will,’ I said and immediately stood up with that purpose in mind.

It was an anxious journey to Bill Oddie’s home, which is found not two miles from my own doorstep. To describe it as a hole in the ground is to miss the essentially Oddieness of the building. It’s basic architectural form is the same as a hole dug into the side of a green hill. It wasn’t a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of cigarette ends and the smell of booze. Not even a dry, bare, BBC hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to watch. This was an Oddie-hole, and that means comfort. A completely round door was set in the side of the hill. Painted bright blue, it was distinguished by a large brass knocker in the shape of an egret’s bill.

I knocked three times before I heard the sound of a shuffling approach.

‘Richard,’ said Oddie, peering up at me as he came out on the step. He was clearly hobbling and using a small walking stick at his side. ‘You’ve come… I knew you’d come!’

‘I didn’t hear about your misfortune until this morning,’ I said, scruffing him around the collar.

He pawed me to enter and I ducked under the low doorway to find myself in a spacious front hall, roughly barrel shaped. The old Goodies three-seater trandem forming a centrepiece down the middle of the room and to one side was a row of Wellington books that snaked off into an adjoining room.

‘Come on through,’ said Bill. ‘The family’s out but I can put a pot on the fire.’

‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble,’ I said as he led me into a study no more than a nest of books, papers, and other ignitables, all in close proximity to a fireplace. On the wall were photographs of BBC celebrities including signed pictures of the two other Goodies. Pride of place had been given to a large photograph of Katie Humble with a dormouse on her head and a large raccoon in her arms.

‘I understand that you were skewered by an errant heron,’ I said as I took a seat by the fire.

Bill winced as he clambered up into his armchair. ‘I’ve never suffered a wounding like it,’ he replied. ‘I was filming a segment for the next series of SpringWatch when Simon King mentioned that he’d left the duck call in the van. I stood up just as a heron was coming in for a landing. It flew straight into me and went right through my leg.’

‘Ghastly,’ I surmised.

‘Indeed it was, Dick. You can imagine that the heron was not best pleased. There was blood everywhere. I’ve still not got any mobility back in the leg and I’m quite the strain on my poor family. I don’t know how they cope with me as useless as this…’

‘It all sounds simply terrible,’ I said and then had one of those rare moments when the left and right parts of my brain work in complete harmony. ‘Do you know what, Bill? You should come and stay with Judy and me. We have a spare room.’

‘I thought Stephen was with you.’

‘He’s gone off to tour America in his taxi,’ I explained. ‘He won’t be back for weeks.’

‘I couldn’t impose,’ said Bill, blushing slightly as the offer clearly appealed to him.

‘But it would be a pleasure,’ I replied. ‘I could help you with your writing and in the evening we can relax together and I can sit with you and watch you smoke your pipe.’

‘I don’t smoke a pipe,’ said Bill.

‘No, no, Bill,’ I carried on. ‘This sounds like an excellent plan.’ I smiled and looked at my friend. ‘I don’t suppose you play Scrabble, do you?’

Invitation to a Beheading

The good news is that I’ve got that job hosting ‘Eye of the Storm 2’. The producers had sent the confirmation via my agent and it only arrived today. The letter gave me the kind of relief I would describe as sexual, if that didn’t imply that I know what it means to have congress with second class mail. And, please, I want no filthy innuendos made about that line. There’s been far too much of that around here lately…

You see, this is a big moment for me. I’ve finally stopped taking my nerve medicine and I’m already beginning to see normality stretching out before me. No, I mean it… And thank God, too. A state of constant misunderstanding has existed between us for months.

Until tonight, I didn’t realise that some of you have been reading this blog in the mistaken belief that it was meant to be funny. I assure you that it wasn’t. Some of you have even been encouraging me to greater excesses, while laughing at a man who, in reality, has been suffering a nervous breakdown. No, don’t laugh. You all seem to have missed the point. I’ve been sick. The medication was playing with my mind.

Luckily, a few new visitors from the colonies saw through my drug induced miasma and diagnosed my problem. Lucky for me, they are viewers of House. That’s a medical drama and it clearly helped them recognise the symptoms of a man suffering the delusions of one who thinks he’s a friend of the Great Fry. A forum reader called Amysusanne was perceptive enough to witness the Emperor with his flaps a-hanging.

“I don't really get it either. I mean once, okay...whatever. But he seems to be beating this joke into the ground and I don't get the "funny" in it. I guess people are responding "LOL" favorably and it's egging him on? Who knows. Maybe there *is* some inside joke I'm not aware of, but otherwise it's just a little confusing.”

Whatever, indeed! Too damn right it is confusing. I’ll be glad to put these last few months behind me. Taking pain medicine with wine is not good. The doctors warned me that I might grow slight breasts, but never did I think they’d appear on my elbows.

Thank God too that He’s gone! Stephen is off to America. I’ll miss him and his spectral presence. But at least he’s over there where he can be canoodled by the febrile young things who are panting hot and ready to lay down their lives on behalf of a living legend in tweed. Being neither a comedian nor having a comedic bone in my body, I fully appreciate what His fans have to say to me. Were wiser words ever put in the form of a forum post than those typed by dear Warycary?

“I don't find it funny either - does Stephen? I think someone should up this guy's medication and prepare the restraints.”

Restraints, certainly! Medication? Perhaps not. I’ve been so high on the stuff it burned my eyeballs and I’ve been seeing Christ in my cocoa. And do you know what? I also don’t think any of this is funny. Who was laughing? Not me. And not Stephen, I’m sure of that.

Were I speaking to Stephen Fry now, I would make this pledge to him.

I, Richard Algernon Madeley, being of unsound mind and addled intellect, do hereby swear that I will not write any more posts that attempt in any way to be funny. I revoke the codes, creeds, and ethos of the comedian and swear that I will uphold the good practises of the TV talk show host, without wit and without humour. I am not funny. Nor have I ever been funny. Funniness shall never be mine.

Thank the Good Lord who has let me see sense before the writs began to fly. To Mr. Fry, I can only express my apologies. In his name, I renounce comedy, blogging, and the words ‘Oddie’, ‘baboon’, ‘bassoon’, ‘elbow’ and ‘Nutkins’.

And God Bless America.

Haircut By Fry

In case you’ve only just noticed my picture: yes, you’re quite right. It’s gone. Do I regret doing it? Yes, I do. And I can’t deny that alcohol played a small part in its demise. I had hit rock bottom. I drank because I was ashamed that I’ve still not had a job offer. But that wasn’t the all of it. I discovered that Stephen Fry is leaving me. Then a tooth divorced itself from a filling. Were the two events related? I cannot say. But my woes were tied into a neat little bundle by Judy who informed that Alan Carr is appearing on tonight’s show…

By the time my chief tormentor retired to bed with her Dick Francis, I was in a much weakened condition. It was probably why I sought comfort with my DVD collection. For one night, I would abandon my books, writing, scripts, and even my beaver. And when Stephen appeared, it seemed only right to spend some time with the man who will soon be touring the Great Lakes in his taxi. To break a confidence, I can tell you that he’s also been feeling pretty rotten about the whole business. He’s heard that Hugh Laurie will be performing the American national anthem before Sunday’s Superbowl. It’s the sort of privilege that makes Stephen just a little jealous of his old comedy partner.

You can see that we were both in moods that might easily be described as tender. Put alcohol on the coffee table and even our plan to sit and chat over a classic film had an element of risk. Not that choosing the film was easy. I wanted something that reflected my mood. Stephen wanted a film that taught him something about driving across America.

‘Thelma & Louise,’ suggested Stephen.

‘Treasure of the Sierra Madre,’ suggested Madeley.

‘Two-Lane Blacktop,’ came back the Great Man’s reply.

‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,’ I returned, thinking I might have won the day.

In the end, we reached a compromise. I shut all the doors, turned down the lights, and set the amplifier to 70% to really appreciate Bernard Herrmann’s score to Taxi Driver.

‘I’ve not actually see this film,’ said Stephen after a few moments. It was a rather frank confession from a man who I thought knew everything about great culture. He gazed at the young De Niro driving a yellow taxi through New York a night. ‘But this is indeed promising,’ said the owner of the nation’s favourite black London cab marked ‘Fry’.

I waved down his chatter. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I just love this speech about cleaning the seats in the back of a taxi…’

Only Stephen didn’t, and, as the film went on, he began to tut more and more as he realised that the story had less to do with taxis than it had to do with one man's descent into his own personal hell. I did my best to calm my guest by pouring him more wine until, eventually, an equilibrium was reached. Stephen began to enjoy Martin Scorsese’s bleak portrayal of Paul Schrader’s almost toxic script and I began to understand why the world is treating me so unfairly. There is a bit of Travis Bickle in Madeley and the events of the last few days made it all the more apparent.

‘My filling fell out today,’ I said to Stephen, who was, by then, looking just a little bleary eyed from all the wine.

‘Typical,’ he said, raising a glass. ‘Here’s to decay!’

‘And I didn’t land the job to which I’d been pinning all my hopes for the last couple of weeks.’

‘Here’s to failure!’ he responded.

‘And Judy has gone and invited Alan Carr onto tonight’s show. I’ve got to be pleasant to the man who once rear-ended me on Hamstead Heath.’

‘Damn his eyes,’ cried Fry and gazed up at the screen before raising a finger. ‘Were I a man in the mood to have a psychotic episode, that’s what I would do,’ he said as De Niro appeared for the first time sporting a Mohican.

‘Judy would kill me if I did that,’ I said. ‘Could you imagine what they’d say at Channel 4?’

‘Well shave it all off!’ said Stephen with sudden passion. Even in the depth of an alcoholic murk he has the answer to every problem. ‘Your Uncle Stephen is not a man for being unduly blunt, Dicky, but you’ve become something of a national laughing stock. You’ve had that same haircut for nearly twenty five years on our screens. Your hair is older than some BBC executives I could name, damn their poxy adolescent hides!’

‘I thought people liked my hair,’ I protested, jumping to the defence of one of my twenty seven features rated by World Heritage as sites of historic importance.

‘You hair is the reason that people think you’re conservative and safe,’ said the only man I know who wears tweed pyjamas. ‘They don’t respect you and they certainly feel no fear when you’re around them. As a great and intoxicated woman once said: play hard to get, Dicky. Hard to get!’ He eased himself up, his plaster cast not making it easy, but with his natural grace and athleticism, up he soon was. ‘Come on, we’ll do it now. I’ve got the perfect thing in my room.’

He returned a minute later with an electric razor designed by New Zealand farmers to sheer the wool from sheep made hardy by the harsh winds of the southern Pacific. I was in no mood to argue with Stephen, whose natural command comes through even when soaked to his gills with juice. As De Niro began his bloody rampage on the screen, Stephen began his buzzing rampage over the Madeley scalp. I can’t say which outcome was the more satisfactory for the protagonists concerned.

After that, I remember very little except drinking more wine and then waking up on the sofa this morning. The DVD menu to Taxi Driver was still lighting up the screen but now the Special Features option was being pointed out by an arm in a plaster cast that was sticking up from the other side of the coffee table. It was only when my own hand instinctively went to arrange my fringe that I felt the cold dome of my head and I began to remember about the job, my filling, Alan Carr, and Stephen Fry shaving me bald...

Judy was less than complimentary when she first saw me and retired sobbing to her room. Stephen was less than complimentary about his hangover and soon tip toed gently to bed. I now have to spent my afternoon finding a suitable wig before the tonight’s show. Being chatty with Alan Carr will be the least of my problems. If you see my brow slip, then at least you’ll know why. My world is falling apart and I with it.