My Letter To The Organizers of the Cheltenam Literary Festival

Being in the public eye means that I occasionally have to bow to the wishes of the people in marketing and promote products. I received a helpful reminder from the people at the Cheltenham Festival and reproduce the details here along with my reply.

Richard Madeley
Sun 19 Oct

"TV presenter Richard Madeley explores how being a father has changed over the last four generations in his uniquely honest and touching book Fathers and Sons. He joins expert and author Frank Furedi to discuss the speed of change in family life and the challenges facing fathers today".

The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival 2008

10 - 19 October

With its signature blend of award winning writers, world-renowned thinkers and international star names The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival is a hotbed of debate and discussion with a unique regency style. In this year’s literary line-up Man Booker Prize winners rub shoulders with the finest classically trained actors, whilst top class comedians appear alongside leading political figures. With more than 450 writers and over 350 events this promises to be an exhilarating ten day celebration of the written word.

For more information visit http://cheltenhamfestivals.com

Or call the box office on 0844 576 7979

And my reply:

Dear Organizers of the Cheltenam Literary Festival,

It’s so good to hear from you again. I can’t believe that the moment is so nearly upon us. I’m honoured to be headlining your festival and the thought of standing up there on the world famous Pyramid Stage leaves me quivering with excitement. And if you would like me to hang around after the festival and help you milk your cows, you need only ask. I know my way around an udder and have been fully trained in teat management.

As you know, ‘Fathers and Sons’ has taken remarkably little time to write. One moment I was writing a comedy about the Cornish herring fleet and then, lo and behold, out pops an autobiography I knew nothing about! Once I'd borrowed the title from Turgenev, the thing was done. You might say that it happened overnight and I would be very grateful if you could snag me a complimentary copy. You probably know that my debut novel was cancelled a month before publication so this time I’m certainly doing my very best to advertise your festival. There will be no repeat. Dick Madeley will see print! Even as I speak, Judy is training her troop of midget Shetland ponies to perform an interpretive dance routine based around Faulkner’s ‘As I Lay Dying’, with Denise Robertson playing the corpse of Addie Bundren. I swear that there won’t be a dry eye in the house by the time I run out on stage wearing my spandex cycling shorts. I’m also delighted that Pam Ayres has now confirmed that she’s available for the duet.

Your news about Oddie does disappoint. He was recently boasting that he attends your festival every year and was there when Shirley Bassey read from her autobiography whilst wearing Wellington boots. It is, however, very gratifying to hear that his stand selling ornamental owl jewellery is so popular with the hippies.

I hope that you and yours are well and that the current dry weather hasn’t affected milk production. Both Judy and I feel that it’s so important that we support a festival in which lactation plays such a vital role.

Best wishes,

Dick Madeley.

PS. Is it too late to change the promotional literature to include some puff about my being the spiritual successor to Conrad, a modern Nabokov, and literary heir to P.G. Wodehouse? At the very least, can you mention that my wife plays bridge with Jilly Cooper?

PPS. I’ve just visited your website and I’m astonished to find that I’m not listed on the front page. Roger Moore is a saint, a real mensch, but has he or Ben Okri ever discussed a particularly painful vasectomy on live TV? I think not. Did all my swelling mean nothing to you?

PPPS. You wouldn’t do this to Clive James.

Being English

Judy poked me in the ribs yesterday. Not unusual, you might think, nor unwarranted, but we were standing in the middle of the local Borders where I’d been examining the nostril of a large cardboard me that dominated the scene.

‘Hey!’ I cried as the elbow hit. ‘That was nearly kidney.’

‘I don’t care,’ said Judy. ‘Look at this.’

She held up a book.

‘Being A Scot,’ I read. ‘By Sean Connery.’

‘Well?’

‘Well what?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think somebody has a damn cheek. Have you seen what they’ve done to my right nostril with a felt tip pen. They’ve made it look like I encourage nasal hair growth.’

‘Oh, you and your nostril hairs! Richard, I’m asking you about this book. What do you think Sean’s thinking, publishing a book like this?’

‘He’s probably thinking that people don’t know how to be a Scot and that he has all the answers.’

‘Well I think we’ve missed a gap in the market,’ said Judy, tutting as she flicked through the pages covered with pictures of hairy knees and instructions on how to groom a sporran. She looked up at me. ‘I think it’s time for you to write another book.’

‘I’m already writing another book,’ I answered. ‘Didn’t I tell you how I made a drastic thirty thousand word cut yesterday, all in the name of plot?’

‘I mean a real book,’ said Judy. ‘One sanctioned by the official Richard&Judy Foundation.’

‘Oh,’ I muttered. ‘One of those books...’

‘“How to be English” by Richard Madeley,’ she said, writing the title in the air with a finger. The words hung there a moment before disappearing and I thought a moment about getting Judy a finger with a more indelible ink.

Once the spell was broke, it was my turn to issue a groan, officially sanctioned by the left hand of the ampersand. ‘Why on earth would I want to write a book like that?’ I asked. ‘Here I am. Six foot something of manhood widely considered the spiritual heir to Nabokov, Conrad, Wodehouse and Alan Whicker, but you insist on demoting me to the level of Jilly Cooper on horse tranquilizers.’

‘Nabokov,’ snorted Judy with much derision. ‘More like “turn-your-head-and-cough”.’

‘Besides, Jude,’ I added, deciding to ignore the cruel taunts. ‘What do I know about being English?’

‘Everything,’ she replied. ‘You’ve been English all you life and you must have a few tips and tricks to pass on.’

She had a good point. Being English comes quite natural to me. There’s rarely a day goes by when I’m not English from dawn to dusk and then for a few hours tacked on at the end. I doubt if there are many people who are as English as me. Cut me in half and I’d read ‘Romford’ through my middle.

‘You know,’ I said, ‘there might be some mileage in this.’

‘I’m sure there is,’ said Judy, putting Sean’s book back on the shelf.
Moved by this episode, I sat down last night at the Madeley Typing Machine and began to write a brief outline of my book.

How to be English by Richard Madeley

'Gareth Hunt is a euphemism for a handful of coffee beans. Dick Emery dressed as a women but wasn’t one of those men that likes to dress as women. Never make friends with a Bulgarian. Don’t perform a Morris Dance after eating beans. Don’t get shot in the gut: it’s a bad way to go...

In this wide ranging book, Richard Madeley (TV host and 1992’s Housewife Magazine’s Man of the Year) introduces you to the world of the English and provides vital tips on how to survive as an Englishman. He explains his own approach to being English with contributions from other famous Englishmen, including Stephen Fry, Bill Oddie, and Sir Clive James. Richard shows you how to make a fire by rubbing two house bricks together, how to cripple a camel using only a toothpick, and why custard is so important to the proper singing the national anthem.

If you’ve ever wondered what it means to be English, this book has all the answers.

God save Richard Madeley! And if God has a few minutes spare, perhaps he can stop off and save the Queen too!'

‘There,’ I said, presenting it to Judy at the breakfast table this morning. ‘Tell me that isn’t top advertising copy.’

She slipped on her reading glasses and went through it twice, nodding as she went.

‘That’s perfect,’ she said. ‘Now get upstairs and start work on the book. I’ll expect it to be finished this evening. I’ll arrange a nationwide tour for next week.’

‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘I haven’t even thought about a plot, a subtext, or even if it’s going to be first person and third.’

Now she slipped off her glasses. ‘Plot? After all these years and you’re suddenly bothering about plot. It’s never stopped you before.’

And there I leave it. The injustice written for all to see.

Brief Moments

Foolishly tried to get into town and back by noon. I failed miserably. Among other things, I was delayed by a hopping optician who had broken his foot after missing his step. He didn’t seem too happy when I suggested that he needed glasses. I was also busy trying to get a look at Katie Price’s newest book without being obvious about it. In the end, I only managed to sneak a peek at a couple of pages but I was impressed by everything I read. You really can’t beat prose written by a woman with large plastic breasts. It’s where I always feel rather let down by Virginia Woolf and George Elliot.

I also spent too long trying to match the faces of the staff in Waterstone’s to the pictures on the shelf of ‘Staff Recommendations’. I was particularly keen to have it out with the young bluffer with the hair like a bryllcreamed caterpillar who suggests that I try Thomas Pynchon’s ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’.

After Waterstone’s, I then visited Borders where I had it out with the young Scouse shop assistant who stopped me to ask if I was okay.

‘Okay? Of course I’m okay,’ I said.

‘Only you looked puzzled.’

‘Argh!’ I scream. ‘Won’t you people leave me alone? I spend most of my life in bookshops. It’s the only place where I’m truly happy. I’m just miles away, blissfully thinking about what to buy...’

‘Oh, I thought you didn’t know what you wanted.’

‘Of course I don’t know what I want,’ I snapped. ‘It’s called browsing for books, you fool. I’m trying to remember what I’ve read, what people have recommended that I read, and a thousand other things that lead me to buy a book. I just want to be left alone to browse.’

I then had to spend another hour browsing, just to make my point and then left without buying anything, also to make my point.

At three o’clock, I climb on a train. A guy is sitting across the aisle from me and on his small fold down table, he has three empty whisky miniatures, a can of lager and dozens of empty wrappers from Opal Fruits. Only they’re not called Opal Fruits any more. I think they’re called Starburst.

As I settle myself, he gets out his mobile phone, dials and starts to speak. He’s clearly in the land of the happy pixies where words come with extra slur.

‘Hello luv. I’m nearly there,’ he said. ‘No, no. Ten minutes. Now, listen.... LISTEN I SAID! Listen, I want you to tell the kids that I’m looking forward to seeing them. Really? She gonna be there? Well tell her I don’t f****** want her there. I can f****** well finish her, I can tell you that. Yes well. Just saying is all. I can finish her. Listen, got some cash for the kids. You tell them I’ll be there soon and I got money for ’em. Be there soon.’

He hangs up and I imagine that somewhere just outside London is a woman who turns to her kids.

‘Good news,’ she says. ‘Your father’s nearly here and he’s got some money for you. But I have to warn you now. He’s been on the Opal Fruits all afternoon.’

Drunk in 318

I said I probably wouldn’t post tonight because I’d be too busy getting drunk alone in my hotel room here in the heart of Manchester. It was clearly a lie. I am posting and although I’m happy to report that I’m suitably braced to the gills with alcohol fortified with paint thinner, I'm not alone. The Titch is currently asleep on top of the TV (vodka, it seems, doesn’t totally agree with his sense of consciousness) while Elberry – tempestuous, wonderful, psychotic Elberry – is, even as I type, out on the balcony, threatening to jump unless he’s brought four young hobbits and a ring of immense power. As for myself, I’m drinking myself through a bad patch. It has been one of the most difficult and tiring days of recent history. There have also been tears.

I’ve just come off the phone with Judy who is quite distraught. She’s been overlooked for the job of treasurer at her local Pool & Billiards Association. It was not a job she was particularly wanted and, to be honest, had only applied for out of spite because her direct rival in the association had declared her intention of going for the job. That’s not to say that Judy wasn’t the best qualified, had the seniority, had the respect of her peers, and, to be blunt, deserved the honour. Yet to have lost out to a woman with gigantically large character flaws has been quite hard for the old girl to take. I can’t wait to get back down south so I can console her properly with long lectures on the way the world never rewards the virtuous, how evil conquers all, and that people who spend their days plotting mischief usually get career advances before those of us that don't.

Ah! I see that Elberry is trying to pull the TV set from the wall and I have no doubt that he intends to throw it over the balcony into the crowds of intoxicated lags and lagerettes heading home. This, I fear, is what happens when Selena Dreamy makes a promise to join us in our revelry and then disappoints us with excuses about Labour ministers and flying ducks. Or at least I think that’s what she said. I can see I’ll have to intervene before Elberry goes too far. I’m not against these randoms act of violence but The Titch is still sleeping on the TV and I wouldn’t like any of my blog’s loyal readers to end up fried on Manchester’s tram lines.

So I’ll end it here. And without a picture. Lola has rightly brought me to task for posting too many photographs taken through Madeley-o-vision. I’m overdoing it on the facial deformities. Let’s restore some balance with lots of heartfelt pretentiousness torn straight from today’s notebook. It’s not funny and is full of that worthiness that comes of those afflicted with delusions of significance.

I’ll try to speak more sense with you all tomorrow.

As written in my notebook:

I’m beginning to dislike myself. Not just what I am and who I’ve become, not this version of Me but the one who turns in for work and grows more manic with every passing hour. Each morning I wake up and find that there’s more to dislike. Eight o’clock and I’m sluggish at my desk. By noon, the tedium has warmed me frantic. Three o’clock and I’m unable to sit still. I say foolish things, embarrass myself. Animals repeat the same actions when distressed. I’m walking the same carpet. Desk. Window. Cooler. Desk. Window. Cooler. Desk.

Perhaps I’m listening to too much Philip Glass. I don’t understand music but I can be evangelical about Bach and Glass: the phrases, the small nuances that change, the sudden expansion after so much that’s been contracted and small. For three months I listened to nothing but Koyaanisqatsi. Now I'm in love with his soundtrack for 'Mishima'. Stunning every time. It reminds me that there no need for a kaishakunin when lead your life by timesheets and use a wireless keyboard.

Somewhere deep inside me, I think sparkling waters still ripple. Good thoughts still condense; ideas drip and form pools where there once were lakes. Yet it’s not the routine of office life that I mistake for misery. It’s the silence. It’s the evaporation. It’s knowing that I could be doing something so much more meaningful with my time. My life. This one shot.

Am I too old to develop ADHD? I find myself fashioning a pair of pince-nez spectacles from a paper clip and the two foam circles taken from the top of a pack of recordable CDs. They sit on my nose and people give me strange looks. I’m so utterly bored.

There’s nothing here that lacks meaning. My are thoughts are disjointed because I’m disjointed. My brain is consuming itself. It’s four o’clock. I make a foolish remark and somebody makes me feel insignificant for being so politically incorrect. How could I misjudge things so badly? Why can't I just be myself and say what I want? Except that I’m on melt-down. This is creative energy channelling itself into the wrong places.

I've escaped. I'm travelling through the city, sitting behind a man on a tram. Grey suit, hair brushed Donald Trump style like a lid operated by a pedal and your foot. One day the wind will catch it and the lid will open. Them we’ll all know what he’s reading. I can only see that he’s holding typewritten pages. I see the line: ‘Arthur slipped off his rat mask’. It’s a manuscript for some unpublished story or novel. A woman is typing away on her laptop across the carriage. A thin guy looking sick, emancipated, jots in a notebook. He probably wants to be Dostoyevsky. Everybody here is a writer. This too makes me hate myself. There are too many words. The world is preserving itself for posterity. Words,in and for themselves, are never worth preserving. Only intentions. Art is not random. It's designed. I don't think writing makes you a writer. That's just a deal people make in order to discount their misery by 20%.

Waterstones. End of the day. I pick up a book. Published. Envy. I read a line randomly from the middle. ‘A child’s pleasure ran through him’. I hate the line and put the book back. I buy myself some Philip Roth instead. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

The Blog Post In Which I Try To Pick A Fight With Will Self

In a duel between two of the better looking members of the ‘Grumpy Old Men’ cast, I think I'd have the advantage of my never having been a smoker. In fact, such is the clear superiority I’d have over the author of The Butt, which I recently added to my library, I would have more than enough opportunities to trap his wheezing body with the deadly Madeley earlobe manoeuvre inside three five-minute rounds. The fight would be over and I’d then have chance to confront an immobile Will Self about the terrible state of his penmanship.

That, at least, is the plan.

There is, in this, as much a note of confession as there is boastfulness. Confession because I’m quite aware that I lack Will’s relationship with words; his loquacity, the way he rumbles and tussles with synonyms, and the élan with which he executes any series of clauses over the course of a tightly writ contemporary satire. Yet I'm not ashamed to acknowledge that I have a clear advantage over the man when it comes to keeping the punters happy. I know, for example, how to sign my name. See:

The process that led me to make this startling realisation began on Friday morning when I found myself again cast out onto the streets of Manchester. An independent television producer with a mild Goebbels complex threw me from the ‘Eye of the Storm’ production offices because of the way I pronounce the word ‘mist’. Tearful, I dashed down to Deansgate and into Waterstone’s, where my slightly outlandish disguise of a beret and a false nose/moustache combination is sure to attract no ridicule. Half of the customers in the shop are celebrities seeking a little solitude and if nobody is going to recognise Bill Roache in a floral hat and woman’s taffeta gown, then I know I’m sure to be safe from the general public. It’s why I go there at least twice a week and rarely buy anything. I just loiter around the Henry Miller books where I console myself that – had I the money – I still wouldn’t go to the desk with a book covered with more modernist nipples than an Elberry post.

Yet Friday was no ordinary day. I had money from my birthday tucked into my sports girdle. In addition to which, I had eaten neither breakfast nor lunch, so I had a few extra coins in my pocket. I was in the mood and financial zone to buy a book. This is how I came to find myself deciding which of the editions of Will Self’s latest to grab. Was it to be the drab paperback made from recycled egg boxes or a hardback signed by the great man himself?

I chose the latter option but soon became disillusioned with the book once I’d settled myself in the coffee shop and set myself to reading it. I had a problem with how it was written. Not the story, I should add. I just mean the signature.


Swipe a pen across a sheet of paper dancing on a manic breeze and you might approximate the autograph I have in my book. The indifferent run of the pen lazily describes a shape that could be a ‘W’ but might also be some strange runic code involving white witches and duck tape. A few dots had been hammered after the scribble, but these too were without meaning. Where they the eyes of the author looking at me or nipples on a lounging figure? Has I turned away from Henry Miller only to still buy myself a reclining nude with literary pretensions?

Or was it that Will is so tired of signing these books that he no longer cares? Has the signed edition really become such a formality? A sham? A marketing exercise? Getting home late on Friday night, I retired to my room examine a few of the other signed editions I own. It didn’t take much searching to realise that Will is just not putting enough effort into his book signings. I have signed editions by Kurt Vonnegut, Alan Bennett, and David Mamet; all of whom were quite happy to exert their elbows when it came to signing my front pages.

Kurt Vonnegut's signature is a work of art as well as including a good partortion of his name, including at least a 'K', a 'V' and a 'T':



David Mamet's signature is almost readable on account of the two recognisable initials.


As for Alan Bennett, his signature is a work of precision to match his prose. Should a signature ever wear a herringbone tweed, this one would certainly have creases to match.


It begs the question: does Will Self know how to write his name so others might recognise it or is this lack of legibility caused by the rocking motion of the Waterstone’s gravy train? I suppose I’m surprised that the act of signing a book still involves a writer putting pen to frontispiece. Might we soon have to satisfy ourselves with the first edition ‘as breathed over by Will Self after a particularly spicy meal’? Might the tang of chicken korma curry be enough to prove that the book has been in the author’s presence? Get the man to urinate on a pile of hardbacks from a great height and I would consider that his mark has been made. Let Waterstone’s print stickers for the cover that read: ‘As Sprayed On By The Author’ and I’ll pay a premium price for a book by the man who best captures the zeitgeist, the throb of the nation’s pulse. He has words coming out of places where most men grow hair. I just wish he weren’t so incapable of signing his name legibly.

Will: I’m calling you out. I demand that you post me a legibly signed copy of your book or I’m coming for you. And I warn you that my deadly earlobe manoeuvre has crippled many a healthy man.

The Straight Edge

As usual, an email from Elberry found me elbow deep in the compost heap of my own scribblings. I don’t know what I was doing there. It’s such a festering mound of old prose, unpolished stories, and novels that have far to go before they can even be considered ‘half-finished’. You see, I’m troubled, dear Madeleyites. I’ve been troubled for the last few days. It all goes back to my hosting this year’s Galaxy Book Awards.

I managed to get through the show with the minimum of trouble. Bill Oddie was sitting backstage with a dart gun filled with mild tranquilizers. His job was to watch a heart-rate monitor and fire a dart into my buttocks whenever it became apparent that I was getting too excited. It worked well until I watched Russell Brand receive his award for best biography. I was suddenly filled me with such rage that the darts didn’t work. Oddie missed with one which lodged itself into Jordan's forehead. The poor girl was struck dumb. It was left to Dame P.D. James to leap up on stage and pin me down during Russell’s acceptance speech.

Now I’ve had time to calm down, I’m left to reflect on what has been a week filled with unique events.

First there was kindness when help came from a totally unexpected quarter. A complete stranger contacted me and helped me with my search to find an agent.

Then there was helpfulness. The agent rang me and talked to me for 25 minutes during which they gave me some very helpful advice.

Then there was frustration. Back up in Manchester, I was mildly scolded by a producer on ‘Eye of the Storm 2’. If I didn’t need the work, ‘Eye of the Storm 2’ would be looking for another presenter.

Finally, there’s vacillation. I’m considering returning to education. The last week's sequence of events has convinced me that I need to have some direction in my life. There has to be something more than 'Eye of the Storm 2'. And writing blogs is fine but they are hardly the stuff of novels. The agent told me as much, advising me that there’s no book to be made from this blog. It means that I have to rub out 190,000 words from my list of publishable material and to write something big and new.

Which leads me to my hesitation... The local University runs a creative writing course. I’m tempted to apply for it. How I’d pay for it, I have no idea. Whether they’d accept me is open to question. And how this would help me, I’m really not sure. But as I told Stephen Fry when he rang me on Sunday morning, since he's been in America, I’ve been missing that spiritual straight edge to run my pen along.

The Touch of Nepotism

An old farmer friend of mine, who shall remain nameless other than to say he’s big in diary cows, rang me on the landline late last night. He caught me with a Cadbury’s chocolate finger stuck up one nostril as I tried to bite off its other end without using my hands. You might call my behaviour ‘odd’ but these are the challenges I sometimes set myself just to keep myself sane.

‘Madeley?’ I said, stuffing the remaining finger into my mouth.

‘Richard,’ said my farmer friend, ’I need a big favour.’

I sank back into my chair but not before taking the 500 page manuscript from the desk and putting it on the floor. As I set it down, it struck me, not for the first time, that the title, ‘Fry, Oddie, & Me’ sounds pretty convincing as a collection of my shorter essays and shorter writings, mainly culled from this blog. My agent has been onto me for weeks to get it printed out so she can begin hawking it around the bigger London publishers and procure me a bit of loose shilling for my pocket that had become increasingly prone to muttering to itself and sitting lonely in the corner.

‘Fire away, Desmond,’ I said, though Desmond is not his real name. ‘You know I owe you plenty of favours. What is it now? Want me to come and help you like last time and rub butter into your cows’ udders?’

‘No, no,’ said Demond. ‘Nothing like that. It’s to do with my youngest, Samantha. She’s just turned twenty three.’

‘You want me to come and rub butter into her udders then?’ I asked as I wiped chocolate from my nose.

I don’t think Desmond was too impressed with the light way I verbally fondled his daughter. However, he was obviously trying to keep on the good side of me and let my comment slip by like a well margarined teat.

‘Sam’s always wanted to get into journalism,’ he began. ‘She’s done her qualifications. Got her 2.2 from the University of Luton and she now fancies working for one of the big broadsheets. You know… Like The Guardian, or The Times. To be honest, Dick, if it came down to it she’d probably give The Telegraph a try. But that’s just it. I was wondering if you could pull a few strings and get her an “in”.’

‘An in?’ I repeated. ‘I don’t know what an “in” would look like. If I did have an “‘in”, I’d used the “in” myself to get myself “in”. I’m more prolific than Clarkson and with more opinions that Gill. I’m perfectly placed to attract a huge readership but even I can’t get in the front door.’

He sounded disappointed. ‘You can’t tell me that you haven’t got some strings you could pull. She’s pretty good at writing. Spells well, good punctuation, the lot. And she has a lively mind. Not the other day she noticed have few black umbrellas there are in the world. How observant is that?’

‘It’s clearly Pulitzer material,’ I agreed, ‘but print journalism is not a business for familiar favours. You don’t get into print just because you’re the son or daughter of an established name. You have to learn your craft by spending years if not decades working in local newspapers. Tell your daughter to start out at the bottom and by the time she’s fifty, she might earn her chance to flex her writing muscles with the big boys.’

You can tell when a chap’s disappointed but doesn’t want to show it. It’s all in the verbal ticks he displays when finding a reason to get off the line.

‘Oh, well, if that’s the way it is, mate,’ he said, ‘I don’t know why I bothered asking… Thanks for nothing.’

After I hung up, I surprised myself to discover that a pretty rotten mood had made itself at home in the room. Putting a flea into a fellow’s ear is not the Madeley way. Not when he considers the fellow a good friend. However the assumption that some people have about me just rubs me up the wrong way. Just because I’m famous, it doesn’t mean that I should be obliged to do every rum Harry a favour. Doors that are closed to me shouldn’t be opened for others just because I say so. Might as well hang a bloody sign around my neck reading: ‘“A” list media careers here, form an orderly queue at my right elbow’.

Anyway, I turned off the light to my office, with one small smile directed towards my finished manuscript, and I hopped it up the stairs towards warm bed and an even warmer Judy.

The warmer Judy was already sitting up in the warm bed, a notebook on her lap.

‘Shopping list?’ I asked as I dropped my trousers.

‘Synopsis,’ she replied.

‘For the shopping list? Surely it’s not that long, even for a New Year order.’

‘For my novel,’ she said.

I tried to give her one of my dignified stares. Hard to do when you’re standing in the middle of the room with your trousers around your ankles. However, I think I did a fine job of it. She seemed to shrink in the bed and pull the notebook towards her.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she snapped. ‘You’re just angry because you can’t get anybody to read your stuff.’

‘It is not stuff,’ I told her. ‘It’s clever social commentary disguised as lightweight comedy. Besides, what makes you think you’ll be any different?’

‘Of come on, Richard,’ she laughed. ‘We haven’t been running the country’s biggest book club without knowing something about books. I’ve already got a plot and plenty of characters. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to sit down at the computer and write my first chapter. How difficult can it be?’

I stepped out of my trousers and picked them up. A snap of the wrists and they were folded and draped over the back of the chair and I set to unbuttoning my shirt.

‘Give me the outline,’ I said. ‘Let’s see what you have.’

She cleared her throat and looked at her pad.

‘Justine Pontleby is the 22 year old daughter of well known celebrity chef Gordon Pontleby. Trading on her father’s fame, she lands a top job in the world of afternoon TV.’

‘Impossible,’ I said. ‘Could never happen. A young sniff of a girl like that would never get a break in TV. She’d have to work years in regional TV or radio before she’d even get a chance of the big time.’

Judy just peered over her half-glasses before she continued.

‘She meets debonair Richard Smiley, a charming if slightly psychotic host of a popular TV talk show. Smiley has dark secrets involving an addiction to sniffing Toilet Duck. When he is involved in the accidental maiming of the show’s weatherwoman, Justine is forced to help cover up the crime…’

I shook my head as my shirt fell away. Just before it hit the floor, I flicked my leg and the shirt came flying back over my head. I caught it and folded it in a single move before I turned my attention to my socks.

‘The thing is, Judy,’ I said as I bounced on the edge of the bed. ‘You have a plot but it’s unbelievable. A man as crazy as this Smiley character would never get his own show.’

‘He hosts it with his sister,’ said Judy.

‘Again, that’s very unlikely,’ I replied as I rolled up my socks and threw them on the chair.

Down to my underpants, I jumped up and strode out to the mirror to run through my five minute Tai Chi exercise I do before bed every night. I like to be centred before I sleep.

‘Don’t you want to hear the rest?’ asked Judy as I began to fight imaginary foes in slow motion.

‘To be honest, Judy, I don’t. It seems to be yet another of these unbelievable stories about the corrupt world of the London based media. I just wish you could tell it how it really is, with the honourable people who work long hours on quality programming before returning home at night feeling totally rewarded with their lives. Instead, I suppose it will be nothing but tales of sex, drugs, and stale bread rolls in the Green Room.’

She closed her notes.

‘I already have an agent who is interested in representing me,’ she said.

I was in the deep squat of the tiger stance as she said this. I felt my muscles tighten. ‘An agent?’

‘Felicity R––,’ she replied.

I looked at her blankly.

‘You know. She’s the daughter of old Reggie.’

‘Little Felicity? She’s a literary agent now?’

‘Oh, come on Richard. Don’t tell me you don’t remember Reggie asking us to put a word in.’

‘Did he?’

‘He did.’

‘I don’t remember putting any words in anywhere,’ I replied, feeling so small squatting there in my red and yellow underpants.

‘Of course you didn’t. But I did.’

‘You did?’ I stood up and heard a bone in my back go acoustic. ‘You can do that? You can put words in?’

Judy stretched a hand towards the light. ‘Not for anybody,’ she said with a smile. The room went dark. ‘Goodnight Richard.’

In Tandem With Bryson

Last week I attended at a charity cycle ride around Durham, accompanied on my tandem by the simply adorable Bill Bryson.

Bill agreed to step in at the last minute when Judy fell foul of her troublesome knee which, you all know, has never been right since she ran the London marathon back in 1987. You might say it was a bit of a blessing. Judy can be too competitive at times, whereas Bill was happy to coast merrily along. He’s also a laugh a minute, though this did lead to a few dicey moments when he took his eye off the road. But even when the brakes failed and we were heading for a ditch, Bill still managed to retain his whimsy. ‘There’s nothing like an English hedgerow,’ he said as we weaved between traffic and sped uncontrollable down the hill. ‘It prevents serious accidents as though God himself had planted cushion bushes down every English by-lane’.

A minute later, Bill was picking leaves from his beard while I took a look at the brakes. It’s then that I discovered that somebody had tampered with the locking nut. Bill thought it was just bad luck but I’d earlier eyeballed Des Lynam hanging around the bike racks with a spanner. I told Bill that I wouldn’t stand for it.

‘Nobody tampers with my nuts,’ I said.

But Bill, being Bill, soon managed to calm me down.

‘What would England be if it weren’t for slightly eccentric TV presenters with a compulsion to do evil?’ he asked and I had to admit that he had a point. ‘Come on, Dick,’ he said, patting my on my back. ‘We’ll go and have a pint of cider in a lovely old-fashioned pub and I’ll tell you some stories about my hilarious adventures with Cornish tin miners.’

Which is precisely what I did and why I’ve been hung over for the last week.

So, now I’m back, and how about some bumper Bill Bryson facts? Did you know that Bill is the country’s most popular author, having sold three books to every man, woman, and child? Such is Bill’s success, he’s being held responsible for a forest the size of Glasgow disappearing every day but, to counter this, he personally plants nearly a thousand new trees each week at his own private oak forest outside Birmingham. It there, on weekends, that he dresses in nothing but Loxley green and likes to be called Robin. Less well know is that fact that Bill has the biggest collection of beard-related literature in the world. He also collects vintage wirelesses on which he listens to broadcasts of old 1950s radio. And did you also know that Bill never flies to homeland of America. He works his voyage on merchant ships being a fully trained coxswain and able to hold his breath under water for several minutes.