10 Pages of Funny

So, I finally managed it. In the last couple of days, I’ve written the first ten pages of the sitcom. Whether it’s any good or not is not important. I’m just relieved that I’m finally out of the dry spell that’s bothered me for about a month. The new job completely broke the routine I’d kept to for the last couple of years and which had made me so prolific. The job has also made me much too reclusive when I get home. I’d stopped answering phone calls from Fry, who insists that I help him finish the libretto for his opera about the iPhone when he gets back from America. I’ve not seen Oddie for days; the scent of spring having sent him off looking for the first frog spawn of the season. Even Judy has deserted me for the fresh air of the garden. From my office, I look out on her now, her elbows deep in the loam. Will there ever be such a women to sit on a daytime couch and touch Richard E. Grant’s knee? I think not.

Now that my competition submission if written, I’m going to give it a final polish, add a few more jokes, and then send it off to the BBC. I doubt if they’ll like it. It’s probably far too Channel 4 for their tastes, what with all the midgets and macaroni cheese. Perhaps I should ask you to judge it for me before I waste postage sending it. Only, that would require my publishing it to this blog and I’m not so keen on giving it away for free. Why let the competition know what I’m up to and give them a chance to write something better, with more midgets and cheese?

Liberated from my mental struggles, I’m now in the mood for a walk. I always have my best ideas when I’m walking. I fancy nipping to the local Tesco and spending money on strange forms of bread which I’ll never eat. However, I mustn’t. This is a month for tightening the belt, readjusting the braces and even rearranging my sock drawer. I don’t even intend to buy a single book this month. Well, that’s a lie. I bought James Wood’s ‘How Fiction Works’, which I recommend without reservation if you’re into intelligent writing about books. I think it was buying this book that shook me back into activity. Thank you Mr. James Wood. (And I loved you in Salvador.)

However, I have one bit of bad news. My bad luck is clearly spreading. I can only give you ample warning that if you find that you have inadvertently given yourself a paper cut, you must sever your arm at the elbow to stop the bad luck spreading to the rest of your body. I send this advice out to Elberry, in particular, who I see has failed to get funding for a PhD.

I suggest to him that he write his thesis anyway. Those of us who lack the patronage of a publisher to fund our writing must struggle to do what’s important to us. I see that he makes the point that office work is tiring not because it’s difficult but because it’s easy. I understand this so well. I think it was Joseph Heller who wrote 'Catch 22' in his spare time, at night, after working all day (possibly in a proofreading post in Manchester). I’m trying my best to write after a day working on 'Eye of the Storm 2' but I would say that the majority of we mortals cannot succeed like that. The analogy we’re looking for is that of a car’s gearbox. Any driver will tell you that it’s impossible to move immediately from first to fifth gear. The two extremes are equivalent to the way the mind works when doing office work and doing original writing. You need to build up speed to do the latter. This can take hours, if not days or weeks. The other can be done as soon as your arse hits your office seat at 8 o’clock in the morning.

Richard & Judy's Christmas Books 2007

I just want to take a moment and mention our show, this coming Saturday. It’s a one-off special for the festive season, when Judy and I will be presenting what we like to think of as our ‘gift guide’ to the best Christmas books.

We’ve put all our favourites into four categories which include celebrity autobiographies, stocking fillers, coffee table books and cookery books. Even better, in the studio we’ll have Ronnie Wood, Sharon Osbourne, Russell Brand and Helen Mirren who'll be choosing which of our nominations make it to the final selection.

I'm really quite excited since neither Judy nor I know which books our guests have selected. I’ve already filmed the segments for all my choices but you’ll have to tune in to see which of the following our panel chose for the final end of year book list.

Richard's List of His Best Christmas Books 2007

Bill Oddie’s Little Black Bird Book by Bill Oddie

Gonzo by Hunter S. Thompson

The Ode Less Travelled by Stephen Fry

Erewhon by Samuel Butler

The English by Jeremy Paxman

Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years 1969-1979 by Michael Palin

House of Meetings by Martin Amis

And It's Goodnight from Him ...: The Autobiography of the Two Ronnies by Ronnie Corbett

Life at Blandings by P.G. Wodehouse

Beyond Good and Evil by by Friedrich Nietzsche

Blogroll Paranoia

Hi guys! Traffic is always low at the weekend and today is no exception. I can only assume that I’m the only person sitting here, surfing the web in my large Channel 4 dressing gown and slippers. Like any well adjusted celebrity, I’ve spent most of my time looking up my name on Google. It’s the easiest way to see what’s happening in my life. It was edifying to see Hello Magazine describe me, quite accurately I thought, as one of ‘TV's best-loved personalities’.

It’s how I had the misfortune of tuning into a blog that has recently dumped me from their blogroll. I don’t know why I’m no longer there but curses on this rejection! Have the people no idea what they’re doing? Why did this blogger have such a change of heart about me? Perhaps some kind of miswired circuitry in their brain? A blockage of some sort? Does my name perhaps remind them of an uncle Richard who has recently gone to prison for misdemeanors involving animals? Do you think I should email them to ask?

The sad truth is that this isn’t the first time I’ve been ‘unlisted’ from a blogroll. It happens to me on a weekly basis. After I launched my Appreciation Society, I was getting listed in dozens of blogs. I was welcomed with open arms by many. Then, after about a week, most had dropped me. Had I done something wrong? I think not. The same is true of many of the first visitors to this blog. Looking back to my earliest posts, many of the original commentators no longer drop by. Surely somebody must have got to them.

Since I’m at a loss to know what I’ve done, I suspect devilry on behalf of Channel 4. Knowing that my contract isn’t going to be renewed, they are secretly spreading misinformation about me. They are emailing all these bloggers to tell them that I’m a dangerous man prone to mood swings. Those of you who have been reading me for long enough know that this is all rubbish. But what could Channel 4 be gaining by this cruel deception?

I’ve also noticed another thing. I often leave comments on blogs and I get no reply. Often, I’ll leave a comment and then another person will leave a comment, and the blog owner replies to the second comment but not to mine. It’s as though I don’t exist. I’ve had to use logic to reason myself around this insult. I think I leave comments of such stunning wit that people haven’t the capacity to match it. My comments are like Shakespearean sonnets and are perfect as they sit.

Oh, why am I telling you any of this? It’s Saturday and there’s nobody there. I’m off to watch last night’s episode of QI.

How To Love Bill Oddie? I Thought I'd Count The Ways…

Following on from this morning’s post and the recent discovery of this blog by the world's most authoritative expert on Bill Oddie, I’ve compiled my list of fifty ways to love the man. I now hope that Mrs. Featheringham is satisfied and will decamp from the bottom of our drive.

But before you read my list, I want to ask any of you out there if there is another blog that gives you this kind of information? Honestly, I don’t think you appreciate me half as much as you should. I see plenty of you dropping by, sometimes reading dozens of pages at a time, yet not enough of you email me or leave a comment to say: ‘Well done, Richard! I’ve been looking for a list of ways to love Bill Oddie for years, but I’ve never found one. Your blog is becoming a regular stop on my daily browse of the internet and I couldn't live without you.’ I need encouragement, people, and I don’t see it. Perhaps one of you might care to write a list of '50 Ways To Love Richard Madeley'? Just a suggestion...

Fifty Ways to Love Bill Oddie

1. Groom him. Bill is the only genuinely bearded celebrity in the UK.
2. Cuddle him. His height to width ratio cannot be beat.
3. Pat the top of his head. It’s only waist height.
4. Tickle his feet. He has two and, yes, they are soft and furry.
5. Rub his tummy. He has two and, yes, they are soft and furry.
6. Make him laugh. He loves a good owl joke.
7. Whistle to him. He’ll whistle back in the fashion of a lesser mottled bill shafter.
8. Make duck calls. He has webbed toes.
9. Sing the Funky Gibbon. He wrote it, sang it, but did you know that he is a funky gibbon?
10. Buy him a mobile phone. He refuses to have one because of the bees.
11. Varnish his knees. They get terribly scuffed twitching in the scrub.
12. Get him monstrously drunk in Chinatown. Again.
13. Roll him down a hill. He’s guaranteed to keep going.
14. Put him in the bank. Oddie is a high yield investment opportunity.
15. Buy him a puppy. His poodle juggling record has yet to be beat.
16. Feed him peanuts. He loves all nuts except for pecan.
17. Put him in a bird box. Make his dream come true.
18. Yank his chain. He wears one around his neck that keeps his flies up.
19. Pick cocoa pops from his beard. They rustle and frighten away the birds.
20. Humble him with Katie. Katie Humble is Bill’s kind of woman.
21. Hang him upside down from a coconut. He has special toes that can hold him there.
22. Reunite him with his earlobes. He has them but hasn’t seem them since 1968.
23. Feel his pain. Tell him not to worry. He is odd but oddly odd. He is oddly Oddie.
24. Follow his winter migration. He heads south, then a bit east.
25. Destroy the BT tower with a mutant kitten. He’s done it before.
26. Support Ipswich Town. They are his team and play his sort of football.
27. Buy him an illegally imported parrot. He’ll complain but grow to love it.
28. Wear a sleeveless jacket. He owns twelve of them and some even have sleeves.
29. Chase him. Poke him with a stick and call him ‘a custard’. He’ll thank you.
30. Tar and feather him. And then call him ‘sexy’.
31. Take the creases from his trousers. He is the most ruffled man in the UK.
32. Take him on holiday. He tans nicely.
33. Nuzzle his neck. But beware the burn.
34. Make him a brew. Biscuit on the side. Warm fireplace. Lovely.
35. Call him ‘Billy’. All his friends do. You can be his friend.
36. Buy him odd socks. Since he has very odd feet.
37. Threaten to trade him in for a Tim Brooke-Taylor. Just to make him love you more.
38. Cheer him up. He feels sad when he sees the last geese fly off for the winter.
39. Put a ring on his ankle with ‘Oddie 1’ written on it. Just in case he gets lost.
40. Build him a badger set. Oddie loves nothing more than a badger.
41. Pre-scuff his shoes. He hates polish and shine.
42. Rut with him in the fashion of deer. Aim low.
43. Clone him. We could all do with more Oddie.
44. Divest him of his illusions. He has many. Divest him of them! Divest him!
45. Put squirrels in his trousers. They can bury his nuts for winter.
46. Stick him up a tree. He hangs quite well and won’t drop in the cold.
47. Watch him through binoculars. He likes to be watched from a distance.
48. Sing light Italian opera to him. He won’t understand the words but he’ll enjoy the tune.
49. Budget for more little Oddies in the spring. Then put cameras in the nest to watch them hatch.

Or

50. Just love him like he was your own special little fellow. He deserves it.

Our Man In The USA: Stephen Fry meets Chuck Norris

Ah! The musky odours of still choirs and murky naves. How quaint it is to be writing again for a small publication such as The Richard Madeley Appreciation Society. The bafflement of silence leaves me feeling really quite dizzy. Hark, the sound of visitor’s feet pattering down the aisle, advancing with skittish excitement, as the wanderer comes hither and sits at Uncle Stephen’s feet as he prepares to tell you all a tale. You do me a service being here, you really do. Oh, shush now.

It is also a welcome break to be speaking to just a few of you instead of the throngs that gather around my shrine-like blog. It tickles old Stephen around his vestments to be talking about something more cultural than the usual old malarkey you get from that dear old Richard. The poor man. He really is. It was Richard, bless his heart, who first suggested that on my current tour of America I visit the home of that American legend, Mr. Charles Norris, known to most of you, I suppose, as Chuck. Chuck! Bless me. What a name! It’s why I drove the old jalopy down to Mr. Norris’ farm, set in the wilderness of the Southern Californian desert. This, my dear children (or non-children should you be 'of age') is what happened next...

My entry into Chuck Norris’ premises, if you excuse the image and I’m sure you will, was not the easiest. My old London taxi could barely be accommodated through gates designed for nothing wider than a horse. Luckily, it was a slightly flatulent horse so we had a lucky inch or two where the bilious paunches would go. I squeezed the cab into the empty bay next to Chuck’s vintage jeep and slipped these old tired bones from the driver’s seat.

‘Steve!’ said Chuck, coming out to greet me on the spacious veranda. Dear. He was a muck or a nettle smaller that I imagined. I would put him about three feet two inches, though it’s hard to judge being a man of some considerable height myself. The was some looming, towering, and not a little hulking over the beaded little Texas Ranger. (That, so I am told, is one of Mr. Norris’s televisual delights.)

‘How was the journey?’ asked the man whom the ladies, both fair and duck like, prefer to call Chuck.

‘Adequate,’ I said. ‘There is a positive bloom about the landscape today. I was particularly enjoying listening to the noise of the waves rolling up the hill from the ocean. It reminded me of lines from my Betjeman. “The sleepy sound of a tea-side tide / Slaps at the rocks the sun has dried.” He was, of course, talking about Anglesey but I think the same could be said about Southern California.’

Chuck gave me a look that I would struggle to call amused as he appeared to juggle with his teeth that sat oddly on gum. ‘You caught a bit too much sun driving down here, haven’t you Steve?’

‘It’s Stephen with the “ph”,’ I said, thinking it better to clear up the poor man’s confusion. ‘I always say that my name is like a somewhat acidic soil, moist yet the better for the genus geranium of the family geraniaceae.’

He took a step back and whistled towards his mud abode. ‘Gena! Come on our here. We’ve got a visitor whose either got too much sun or he’s been bitten by a raccoon. Bring the shotgun. He might turn rabid.’

‘Rabid, indeed!’ I chuckled until I was wet about the lips. ‘I was warned that you were a man of much mirth but I hardly expected you to be a veritable Oscar Wilde.’

Chuck took another step back. ‘Ain’t he the guy who went to prison for those “unnatural” acts?’

‘He was certainly a martyr to the cause of individual freedoms,’ I replied.

He whistled again. ‘And Gena? Bring me my pistols too…’

‘Now, now, Chuck… I hope you don’t mind my calling you Chuck. Chuck! Bless me. A strange name, certainly. Makes you sound like projectile vomit. But Chuck, would you mind if I ask you a few questions about being, dear me, how shall I put this… “an American”?’

‘What the hell was that?’ he asked, suddenly animated like one of those insufferable cartoon characters that are always gesticulating these days. Homeric Simpson, perhaps.

It was why I was forced to be somewhat stern in my reply. Don’t hold it against me, readers. There was fret, if not anxiety, in my question when I returned it.

‘What was what?’

‘What was that you did when you called me an American?’

‘Oh this?’ I said, again wiggling Stephen’s fingers in the air. ‘They are known, quite commonly I should imagine, as “air quotes”, though they are sometimes called “bunny quotes” because they look rather like two little bunny rabbits, no doubt cavorting and doing the rather risible and sometimes risqué things that little bunny rabbits do to make even littler and, indeed, bunnier rabbits.’

‘You are one sorry son of a bitch, aren’t you Steve?’ asked Chuck.

‘Now, shush,’ I said, striking the Texas Lone Ranger across the nose with a finger. ‘I believe I'm the one who’s meant to be asking the questions, Chuck.’

There passed a few moments as this dwarf of the Mojave inspected me, making I believe three circuits of this fine upstanding English body before he stood before my knees and pushed his finger into my stomach. It was, as they say, quite a reach for the little fellow.

‘Is that wool you’re wearing?’ he asked, fingering my suit in neither an invasive nor lubricated way.

‘It is indeed,’ I replied. ‘Mr. Hitchcock makes them for me in London. Savile Row. He even double stitches my gussets for that added security.’

‘You’re wearing wool in ninety degree heat?’ whistled Chuck through his teeth. ‘And you ain’t warm?’

‘A bit chilly if the truth be told. But to my questions. Chuck… Deary me. Chuck! What a name. Tush. But Chuck, I am here for questions and questions you must be set. You are well known as a man of the marital arts, are you not?’

‘Marital? Did you just say marital?’

‘I did indeed. I’ve done some, or should I say “a little”, reading up on you, Chuck. My researcher compiled quite generous notes on your many marital skills.’

Chuck drew a hand around his bewhiskered chin. ‘And what did you say the name of your researcher was again?’

‘I don’t believe I did mention his name,’ I said, regretting my having to bring the man’s name to Chuck’s ear. ‘It’s Richard. Richard Madeley. He’s quite well known in the UK and has written some terrible poems about me. Still, it was his idea that I should interview you about your marital arts. I assume your wife, Mrs. Chuck, is around, so I can get the critic’s point of view, as it were?’

‘Look Steve,’ said Chuck. ‘It’s martial arts. Not marital. I’m a fighter. An ass kicker...’

‘Are you indeed? Both a fighter and a lover? And what do you fight? I do hope it’s not Mrs. Chuck.’

He squinted at my kneecaps. ‘I fight any creature that can walk or crawl,’ he said, spitting a wad of something onto my Hush Puppies. ‘There ain’t an animal whose ass I’ve not kicked at some point.’

‘Surely not an elk?’ I asked. ‘Or a mongoose? Or even a chipmonk? Surely you’ve not kicked the ass of a chipmonk, Chuck?’

Dear Chuck seemed to be on, as we say, ‘a roll’. He went on chuntering to himself as if chewing on his own teeth. ‘Every lowdown stinking animal, every low life bum, street mugger, wife beater, lilly-livered Democrat… Every one of them I’ve taught to respect the power of the Norris.’

I believe it was the business with the teeth that reminded me of something that Richard had asked me to discover regarding dentures. It accounts for the odd yet brilliant turn of my next comment.

‘The power of the Norris! Well, my soul is truly blessed. It reminds me somewhat of Frank Norris, the American writer of very great power whose novels of poverty in the depression were better, in my own not-so-humble opinion, than the works of Steinbeck. Less sentimental, don’t you think Chuck? My favourite book of his was McTeague. Have you ever read it?’

‘Should I have?’ asked Chuck.

‘It’s about a dentist.’

He looked at me, his sun-dried skin gathering into hard worn scars around his eyes. ‘Nope. Never read it.’

‘Surely you’ve kicked the ass of a dentist in your time, Chuck?’ I offered.

‘What are you suggesting? Why would I have kicked the ass of a goddamn dentist, Steve?’

‘Suggesting?’ asked I, Stephen with a ‘ph’. ‘What on earth could I be suggesting? That you wear dentures? The very notion is ridiculous! I wouldn’t know where I could have heard it. Actually, I do know where I might have heard it. From the same chap who mentioned that you were into marital arts. Bless my soul. I should not have listened. No.’

‘Too damn right you shouldn’t,’ said Chuck, now raising himself to his full three feet and not too many inches. ‘And I suggest you get back in that Limey goddamn taxi of yours and get the hell of my property before you too feel the power of the Norris.’

I laughed as indeed I am sure you too would have laughed. ‘The power of the Norris! I find that such an odd concept having grown up on the memory feats of the great Norris McWhirter. Did you ever watch Record Breakers, Chuck?’

Ah, how I should have stilled my lips. With a mighty leap, Chuck Norris leapt up into the air and delivered a painful flying kick to my right kneecap.

‘Gosh,’ I said, bowing down to rub the painful ligament and torn wool. ‘I think I’ll be going.’

‘Too right,’ said Norris as I began to hobble towards the taxi. ‘What does Betjeman say about broken goddamn kneecaps, Steve?’

What indeed?

There was little time for goodbyes. Nor was there any promises to exchange recipes over the internet. I floored the taxi out through the gate the width of a flatulent horse and gunned it, as we say in America, 'towards the highway'. At the first gas station, I rang my production team up on my iPhone (have I mentioned what a wonderful piece of kit it is?) and told them to abandon plans to meet me at Chuck’s ranch later that day. He was, I told them, not the sort of man who would please a BBC2 audience. I would think he’s not even the sort of man to please writers of low quality blogs.

There you have it. Chuck Norris: the man who ruined the knees in a perfectly good pair of trousers.

Official Statement by Richard Madeley

The news that we’re giving up our afternoon slot on Channel 4 should come as no surprise to the three of you who’ve been reading this blog regularly. This is the official statement I’ll be shortly releasing to the media.

In the last few months, the direction in which both Judy and I had hoped to take our show has become increasingly at odds with Channel 4’s attempts to make us more culturally diverse. We attended a meeting last week at Channel 4 headquarters at which we were asked if we would speak Polish for 10% of the show. Judy refused. Then they asked me if I could ‘smile more’ the female viewers and ‘leave an extra shirt button undone’ for the 57% of our audience who are male and gay. I also refused. The breaking point came with their attempts to force us to have a regular feature dealing with mental heath issues for nanuses. Channel 4 wanted to call it ‘Little People’s Mind Dell’. I wanted to call it ‘Mental Midget’s Corner’. We were at loggerheads and I’m afraid at that point it was obvious that we would have to leave Channel 4.

What does this mean for Richard&Judy? Judy will be releasing her own statement shortly, though she has been saying for some time that she wants to spend more time in the garden. I support her in her decision, so long as she doesn’t expect me to weed the shrubbery. I intend to carry on with my own projects. I have some excellent opportunities coming up on the satellite channels and I’m particularly looking forward to narrating a ‘A Brief History of Bicycle Pumps’ for the Discovery Channel in December. I will then be travelling to Humberside to look at the creative uses they’re found for scrap pig iron. ‘Richard Madeley in Humberside Looking At The Creative Uses For Scrap Pig Iron’ will be shown on UK Gold in the New Year. I’ve also had offers to host shows for UKTV, The Biography Channel, and Bits and Babes UK.

I ask that nobody shed a tear for Richard&Judy. This is the beginning of a new adventure. We hope to see you all soon, and, speaking for myself, hope you will all come over to Channel 643 next Tuesday evening, where I’ll be demonstrating Ronco’s new 'Fuzztastic Hair Curlers' on Shop Vector+.

The Tunisian Weekend

You have to forgive me if I’m looking a little ragged around the edges this morning. We’re just back from a whistle stop holiday in Tunisia. And can I just say what a wonderful nation it is. Such colour, such weather, and a nation full of wonderful customs, cuisine, and culture. The only thing that let it down was those damn Tunisians and their inability to understand English. They want to speak nothing but French or Arabic, which you might think suits a man who works on Channel 4. But it doesn’t. There wasn’t a single shop selling subtitles. Judy suggested that we buy one of those remote controls to change audio track but we were sorely let down by the absence of a Dixons on the Tunisian high street. There wasn’t even a Boots.

After struggling to get to our hotel, we decided to do things the old fashioned way, by paying a local to translate everything for us. Only not being used to having a translator, I soon got into some difficulty because I didn’t know who was speaking or what was being translated. Our translator would start chatting to us and I’d think he’s talking to me when, in fact, he was merely translating something somebody else had said to him. I didn’t know who to look at, whose hand to shake, or, at one point, which end of the donkey to give the carrot. I soon realised that the problem lay in our translator looking too much like the locals and I solved this problem by putting a paper bag on his head. We spent the whole weekend in Tunisia being trailed around by a man wearing a brown paper bag, translating everything we heard.

In the end it was a good bit of business. We managed to do our piece for the Holiday Programme before we jetted home again late last night, and landed in Heathrow around midnight. To say things have been a bit hectic is an understatement. The last thing we needed was more trouble.

This morning we were back to our usual routine with a shopping trip to the supermarket. We were walking around our local Tesco, when Judy suddenly nudged me.

‘Richard,’ she said. ‘Did you notice something odd?’

‘Odd? What kind of odd?’ I asked, dumping a leg of lamb into the trolley.

‘Back at the cheese counter,’ she said. ‘When you were buying your weekly Edam. Everything you said sounded a bit foreign.’

‘Foreign?’

‘Well, a bit Arabic but mixed with a little French.’

As soon as she’d said it, I knew she was right. But I was also busy slapping my head, realising my oversight.

‘We forget to pay him off!’ I cried, dragging the figure in the paper bag from the shadows of the cracker section. ‘It was my fault. I was so used to having him with us, I must have paid for his seat on the plane back.’

‘I did wonder why British Airways sounded more like Air France,’ said Judy. ‘But what do we do now?’

‘We might take the bag off his head to begin with,’ I suggested.

Judy whistled and raised her eyes to the security cameras. ‘Immigration,’ she sang in warning.

She was right. You have no idea who is watching the feed from these supermarket cameras. The last thing the Richard&Judy show needs is a reputation for hiring illegal immigrant labour. In the end, we bundled him into the Range Rover and headed straight for Heathrow where we left him by the terminal building, with enough money to buy himself a ticket home. I think he was happy with the arrangement but, with the paper bag still on his head, I really couldn’t tell. But that’s another problem with Tunisians. They are people who very rarely show their emotions. And you can consider that your Richard Madeley Certified Fact of the Day.

The Tramp Called Dodger

The plans for the new series get more exciting by the day and I’m pleased to announce that our’s will be the first UK show to provide regular jobs for some of London’s thousands of tramps. I admit that this was my little brainwave. I notice on the drive to the studios that London has an abundance of homeless vagrant types, wandering the streets with nothing else to do. ‘Untapped potential’ thought I as my eyes narrowed and my brain went into overdrive. This morning I asked my driver to slow down next to one of the ugliest, smelliest, and most violent individuals we could find to see if he'd be interested in filling in while Denise Robertson goes on her spiritual quest to find herself up the Andes.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, through the window’s one inch gap. ‘Are you interested in a job?’

‘A job?’ repeated the man slowly as though the word once held meaning for him. ‘Ay, I’m interested. What doing?’

‘I thought general chat about weekly new items seen from the perspective of the slightly deranged and possibly sociopathic.’

‘Sociopathic? I could do that,’ he said, fingering the knife he’d take from his pocket. ‘When would I have to do this?’

‘Possible twice a week,’ I said, ‘depending on the number of guests we have on the show. You’d probably be on the sofa between Kim Wilde and Dr. Raj. You’d provide an alternative point of view.’

‘I like the sound of that,’ said the man as he began to scratch his initials into the door of the limo.

‘Well, that’s that,’ I said. ‘Hop in and I’ll take you to the studio.’

The production meeting went fine, except for the ten minutes we spent at the end trying to get my friend to release his hostage. A half-consumed box of Jammie Dodgers seemed to pacify him and all was settled when we promised him a weekly supply of his very own.

I personally think that Dodger (as we've now christened him) is going to be a huge star for Channel 4. We’re already thinking about producing his own series. We just have to find the right vehicle for him. Perhaps something to do with home improvements. I like the ironic twist it gives to a well worn genre.

Since I’ve been light on facts the last couple of days, here’s some facts about Jammie Dodgers. They are the world’s most popular biscuit, though in American they’re known as St. James Dodgers. In Japan, they have a wing of their biscuit museum dedicated to the dodger. The jam in a dodger isn’t actually jam but a syrup. It’s specially formulated to keep the two halves of the biscuit together and is actually stronger the rubber cement. Too many jammie dodgers eaten in a day can clog up the digestion, producing dodgeritus, which is a real medical condition, the remedy of which is to gorge on fig rolls. Conversely, eating too many fig rolls can produce a condition known as figrolltiddilyitus, the cure of which is – you’ve guessed it – eating plenty of Jammie Dodgers. But once you start, you will find it hard to reach a balance. You have been warned.