The Adventures of Baz Mad

The party lasted long into the night at Madeley HQ, here in our undisclosed part of North Londonshire. The great and good of showbiz had come to mark the end of the Richard&Judy partnership and Bruce Forsyth was there, too, entertaining us all with his soft shoe shuffles and his famous anecdote about a golf umbrella, Jimmy Tarbuck’s 9 iron, and a sticky eighteenth hole.

The night was a success worthy of our long career in television but, eventually, around 2am, I saw Judy tap her nose and fiddle with an earlobe and I knew it was time to ease our guests casually towards the front door. Or, if that didn’t work, drag them by whatever surgical enhancement provided a firm enough grip.

‘Have you seen the genuine Tudor buttress on the end of the house?’ I asked David Dickinson, who had spent most of the evening on his hands and knees, looking for maker’s marks beneath the IKEA coffee table.

‘Genuine Tudor!’ he cried. ‘This I’ve got to bloody see!’

He didn’t, of course, ‘see anything’. But once I’d got him to the front door he did feel the creped underside of my right boot placed in the small of his kidneys. Similar tricks worked on Alan Titchmarsh, Natasha Kaplinsky, and Dame Kelly Holmes, each of whom I’d managed to lure away from the buffet table with the promise of a drooping plumb tree, a photo opportunity, or the challenge of a sprint up the drive in aid of Cystic Fibrosis. In the process, I’d also managed to get Forsyth out the front door by tying a five pound note to a thread attached to Dame Kelly’s dress. I know she prides herself a running a good middle distance race but I’m sure even she was flagging when she turned the end of the road chased by Brucie out to top up his income.

Back in the house, the party continued to shed talent like the BBC during a pay review. A pair of recognisable sandals were sticking out from beneath Vanessa Feltz so I grabbed them by their heels and gave a yank. There was a loud squeak and a ‘pop’ noise, much like a cork coming from giggly bottle, before the yank produced a Yank. An anglicised Yank, to be specific, dressed in quality tweeds to go with his Jesus boots and horn-rimmed spectacles.

‘Oy! What did you do that for?’ cried Vanessa and made a move to drag Johnny Depp back towards her.

‘Where am I again? What am I here to promote?’ asked Johnny, probably confused due to the usual high build-up of CO2 in Vanessa’s cleavage.

‘I think it’s time to let Johnny go,’ I said, quietly pleased with myself for rescuing my favourite Hollywood ‘A’ list star from my second favourite member of the triple D brigade.

‘Well, would you like me to take him home?’ she asked.

I know her games and I couldn’t do that to the poor lad. I tucked a ten pound note into his breast pocket and whispered into his ear the directions for the local bus stop. That’s the thing you can sure about with Johnny Depp: he’s a true professional. You only need to direct him once and he’ll give you a performance worthy of the Number 14 to Kensington.

By this time, Judy had managed to get rid of most of the minor celebs, working her charm to great effect. Whenever they threatened to stay, she’d sob on their shoulders, breath tales of woe in their face and ask if they could help revive her career. There’s nothing more certain to upset an ambitious young celebrity than the taint of failure or retirement. And any that prove particularly resilient to tears will eventually scarper if you offer to put them in touch with Les Dennis’ agent.
Soon, we were down to one old favourite who would be stubborn to shift given that early in evening she’d disappeared with a bottle of Drambuie. Thankfully, Vanessa stayed long enough to help us in our search.

Eventually, I found Cilla Black down in the cellar, blowing tunes over the empty end of the empty whisky bottle.

‘Surprise surprise!’ she’d cried as I opened the door of an old wardrobe in which Judy used to keep her spigot collection.

‘Come on, Cilla,’ I said as I lifted her from the wardrobe and threw her over Vanessa’s shoulder.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Vanessa, ‘I’ll take her from here.’

‘I used to sing with the Beatles!’ cried Cilla.

‘Of course you did,’ I replied. ‘There had to be a good reason they broke up.’

The last I saw of the two of them was Vanessa walking down the drive with Cilla over her shoulder, trying to pat out the rhythm of ‘Obla Dee Obla Da’ on Vanessa’s bottom.
With the last farewell made, Judy put out the milk bottles before I turned the lock on the front door and we both breathed a sigh, or, more accurately, two sighs divided by the familiar ampersand that has served us so well.

‘So, that’s that for Richard & Judy,’ I said.

‘We’ve had a good run but I think we’re making the right decision to retire before you hit your mid-life crisis,’ she replied moving in for a cuddle.

‘Indeed we have,’ I replied, my arm draping around Judy’s shoulders. ‘I just wonder what the future has in store for Barry Madeley...’

‘Who’s Barry Madeley?’ asked his wife.

‘Barry is my new name,’ I said, already cursing myself for having spoken my thoughts aloud. These were plans to which I had failed to make my wife privy. It was time for some firm explanations. ‘You see: I don’t want people expecting to hear “& Judy” whenever my name is mentioned during my solo career. That’s why I’ve changed my name to Barry. I’ve been meaning to tell you ever since it became official two months ago.’

‘Two months! But I don’t understand why you’d change it. Richard goes so well with Judy.’

‘Well the name’s now Barry,’ I said, ‘but if you want to be informal, you can call me Baz.’

‘But I don’t want to be married to a Baz,’ she replied.

‘So call me Bazzer or even Bazroid if you prefer the exotic.’

But Judy just fell silent and realising that our hug had gone cold, I gave a shrug and climbed the stairs to bed. I was already fluffing my pillows by the time Judy joined me.

‘I don’t understand why you won’t let me call you Richard,’ she said.

‘Look, Jude,’ I replied, ‘I know you’re attached to that name but I’m seeking a new audience that is beyond your reach. I want to appeal to dynamic go getters in my own age range. If they’re older than 35, they’re ancient in my book, Daddio. Baz Mad doesn’t do fossils.’

Judy’s face turned a shade of beetroot high in the Betanin, which as you’ll know, is the chemical that makes Judy red.

‘Baz Mad?’ she spluttered.

I’d done it again. I hadn’t meant to let Judy in on my plans so early on in my separate career but the cat was out of the bag, as they say. So far out that it was probably thinking of bringing a dead rat back in through the back door.

‘I thought I’d abbreviate my surname as well,’ I explained. ‘“Baz Mad” has a certain ring to it, don’t you think? Sounds a bit like Gaz Top and do remember how successful he was?’

‘Well, I don’t like it,’ said Judy, sourly folding down the sheets on her side of the marital mattress.

‘Abbreviations work in this increasingly fast culture of ours. Twitter has taught me a lot about being brief, Jude, and “Baz Mad” will look great on the cover of my novel...’

‘Your novel?’ asked Judy.

That’s when I realised that I’d done it again. As you know, Judy sees herself as a writer of some potential.

‘That’s right. I’ve decided that I want to write fiction,’ I said. ‘And I know what you’re going to say. We agreed that you would be the one writing erotic fiction and I’m not going to step on your toes, Jude. I won’t touch your eighteenth century courtesan, Jemima Flirt. Oh no! Baz Mad’s erotic fiction will be of a different tone altogether.’

Judy sank onto the edge of the bed without even bothering to fluff her pillows.

‘Erotic fiction? But that means you’ve stolen my dream!’

‘Not stolen, Jude. I merely took an interest and found I had a natural flair for soft-core eroticism. I’ve been writing my book for many months. It shouldn’t bother you. It will have been published months before you get yours in the bookshops.’

‘Oh Richard! It was my dream to publish a book of erotic tales.’‘And your dream is still your dream, Jude. However, Barry just got there before you. Here,’ I said, sliding my four hundred page manuscript from beneath the bed. ‘Cast your eyes over that. But take care. Some of this is so juicy it will drip off your chin. It’s a story set in a Lancashire town about a tyre fitter and his mature lover.

She looked at the front page.

‘Mrs Chatterley’s Rover: A Tale of Six Strokes?'

‘Catchy, isn’t it?’

She snorted or perhaps just cleared her throat before she began to read aloud from one of the more sexually explicit parts of the book, when the tyre fitter first meets Mrs. Chatterley on the A573 outside Golborne, Lancashire.

As he jacked up her rear, her marigolds squeaked seductively on his bald crown like two rubberised otters in a frisky dance. His passion overwhelmed her; her frigidity falling away like the rust on a large lug nut, oiled with WD40 and tapped with his spanner.

‘I feel so hot and dirty,’ she said but he just whistled and kicked her knees. ‘Perhaps you’d like me to rebore you cylinders,’ he replied.

Ten minutes later, her foot was suspended by the elasticated cord of her pine air freshener as she felt her fan belt snap and her hot exhaust splutter his name. ‘Ronald’.

‘My Rover’s a coupe!’ she cried. ‘It doesn’t have four doors!’ But he knew different as he packed her generous luggage space and ran a masterful finger over her vulcanised tread, every stroke of his foot pump engorging her inner tube, her being swollen to eternity!

Judy sat there in silence for nearly a minute.

‘Well?’ I asked. ‘Did that make you feel better? Did you like that bit at the end. Thought it made it sound a bit like D.H. Lawrence.’

She handed the manuscript to me and slid her legs under the sheets before leaning over and putting a kiss on my upper right cheek.

‘Richard,’ she said, ‘I should have known I had nothing to worry about.’
And with that, she reached over, turned off the bedside lights, and left me listening to her snoring that may have trembled the bed but they also made Baz Mad feel very contented with the world.

Anal Probes, Cow Mutilations, Cilla Black

Strange lights lit up the sky over our undisclosed part of South East England last night. The first I knew of them was when Judy shouted me from our indoor swimming pool where she’d been partially submerged for about an hour before she was due to have her nightly trombone practice. Abandoning the research notes for my new book, ‘Pirates & Stumps’ (which I've decided will be next year's 'Richard&Judy Book of the Yaarrgh'), I went rushing from the living room to find Judy dripping on the veranda and staring out into the garden.

‘What are those strange lights?’ she asked, pointing a wrinkled finger westwards.
I handed her a towel before I went out to investigate. I wasn’t happy that she proceeded to follow me out into the cold night air but that’s Judy. She’s got the thermal resilience of an arctic vole. To be honest, I was also less concerned about my wife’s wellbeing than the meaning of the lights she’d pointed out. They were strangely coloured discs of radiant energy flashing in some odd yet non-random sequence. Clearly, there was only one explanation.

‘It’s the alien invasion!’ I said, believing it. ‘Thank God for that! This can only be good for us, Jude. Perhaps it will take an extra-terrestrial to see that our place is on terrestrial. With some higher intelligences in charge of the world, we’ll see out stars rise.’

‘Really?’

‘Mark my words, Jude. Unless, of course, they’re the other sort of alien...’

‘The other sort?’

‘You know... The sort that go in for anal probing and mutilating cows.’

‘Ah,’ she replied. ‘Channel 4 viewers.’

‘That sort of thing, yes,’ I answered. ‘Probably enjoy Polish animation and the films of Jean Luc Goddard.’

Judy looked worried as she watched the lights. ‘I’m not happy about this, Richard. What if they are the other sort of aliens with their probes?’

‘Then Paul O’Grady will be quids in, as they say. He’s get another series. No doubt about it.’

‘But shouldn’t we do something?’

I shrugged. ‘What can we do, Jude? If this is, as I suspect, the alien invasion, then we can only sit here and wait until they want to speak with us. Perhaps they’ll make us their spokespeople.’

‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ said Judy. ‘Richard&Judy’s Anal Probing and Cow Mutilation Club is not something I’d want to put my name to.’ With that pronouncement, she wrapped the towel tightly around and turned back towards the house.

‘Where are you going?’ I asked.

‘I’m ringing Cilla,’ she said.

I shook my head, baffled by the faith that Judy puts in Cilla Black. I turned my attention back to the lights and walked deeper into the garden, away from the house and the illuminated carp pond, solar lit shrubberies, and the halogen lights that Judy set into the path when she laid it last summer. At the bottom of the garden, I sat down beside our ornamental Ainsely Harriot statue that Judy cast in concrete last year. Judy spends many happy hours on that bench but this was one of the rare times I had gone and sat there. I averted my gaze from Ainseley’s haricots, as I’ve taken to describing his beans, and I watched the light show. I had no doubt that Cilla Black could hold back an alien invasion for an hour or two but, unlike Judy, I knew that Cilla’s voice would eventually pack in and the invasion would go ahead.

After about five minutes sitting there, I began to have my doubts about the whole alien invasion scenario. It wasn’t so much that the lights seemed to be less dramatic than I’d originally thought but I had detected a low level noise to which they seemed to be moving in rhythm. It was if some bad music was being played in a house on the other side of the Madeley pond/lake.

I rushed back into the house to find Judy on the phone with Cilla. I didn’t have time to get involved so I grabbed my coat and headed out the house and began to walk down the street in the direction of the music.

Before I reached the end of the road, a head popped up over a hedge. It gave me quite the start, given that it was wearing a Arabian turban with non-matching Kenyan tribal gown and Manchurian dragon slippers.

‘Michael!’ I cried to Michael Palin. ‘What you doing there?’

‘Observing the lights,’ he said.

‘You’ve seen them, then? What do you make of them?’

‘It’s the alien invasion, isn’t it?’ His turban bobbed about with excitement. ‘It’s what you’ve always talked about. Or I do hope it is,’ he said. ‘I’m desperately in need of a new long distance journey I can film for the BBC. Michael Palin’s Earth to Centuri has a ring to it, don’t you think?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t think it is the invasion,’ I told my excitable friend. ‘It seems to be coming from a house down the road. You fancy coming along as I investigate.’

Michael thought for a moment and then his face broke into a huge grim. ‘Michael Palin’s Journey From Some Undisclosed Location in South East England to Some Other Undisclosed Location in South East England. Quite the catchy title. Haven’t got my camera team but I could quite easily get a book out of it. Count me in.’
And so we set off, me in still in my slippers and Michael dressed like a third-rate stage magician. The music led us on and grew louder once we turned the end of the road.

In the next street, the lights were at their brightest. I could sense Michael’s disappointment as he saw the beams of light coming from a nearby back garden and lighting up the low cloud base. The was also the unmistakable throb of music accompanied by some high pitch shrieking that was a frightening as it was familiar. The house itself stood higher than the rest and was decorated in white plastic facia with a few pink flamingo illuminated in their plastic glory stuck around the front lawn, which had been spray painted a green turquoise.

‘Rather a tacky end of another exciting Palin adventure,’ said Michael.

‘I agree,’ I replied, looking at the windows painted in a garish shade of yellow with pink curtains beyond.

I began to walk up the path, determined to find a reason why Cilla Black had been put on the alert for alien invasion when there was a yell from the side of the house and a figure came running towards us.

‘Hell,’ said I as I recognised the figure. Although he was more tanned that me, with brighter teeth too, and darker hair, he was still the embodiment of everything that the name Madeley doesn’t stand for. In a way, you might say he is my direct opposite; the negation to everything that’s positive and wholesome about me. You might even say that he was the Anti-Madeley.

‘How the hell did you get in?’ asked Simon Cowell, not at all breathless and with his high pectorals perked with adrenaline and stimulated to the point of twitching. ‘This street has restricted access. How did you get past the gates?’

‘We’re celebrities too,’ said Michael, adjusting his sagging turban so he stood a bit taller.

‘Yes,’ I added. ‘No doubt about it. The gates recognised us and swung open.’

‘A likely story,’ laughed Cowell. ‘I’ll give you thirty seconds to get out before I call my bodyguards, who happen to be a very talented close harmony boy band called “Knuckles Inc.”. Look out for their single next Christmas, their techniques for breaking kneecaps in about twenty seconds.’

‘Pah, idle threats,’ spat Palin as he turned on his dragon heels and began to run.

I watched him retreat before I turned back to Cowell. ‘How the hell did you manage to buy a house in this area? I thought we had rules about your sort moving in.’

‘Oh, you can do what you like down there on millionaires’ row,’ he said. ‘This is billionaire’s row.’

‘And the lights?’

‘I’m having a small barbeque and outdoor disco for friends,’ he said.

‘Bit chilly for that, isn’t it?’

He looked at me, his lopsided grin even more lopsided and full of grin. ‘You don’t have your back garden fully centrally heated, Richard?’

The point was cruelly made. I didn’t wait around for the debut performance of Knuckles Inc.’s hit, so I trudged back down to millionaire’s row, feeling my pockets pinched by the desire to have my own back garden centrally heated.

I got back to the house to find Judy dressed in fatigues and ready for combat. Cilla Black was apparently on her way and would be parachuting in within the hour. I didn’t have the energy to explain. I did contemplate mentioning to Judy about centrally heating the garden. She’s a dab hand at plumbing and electronics and could do it on the cheap. However, that would involve my explaining about Cowell and that would mean another call to have Cilla Black stood down for the evening. Planes were already in the air. It would be easier to have her land and explain it all then. As Judy went out to prepare the landing strip with flares, I headed for the kitchen and something to settle my stomach. Even without any anal probing, I was still in for a long and painful night.

The New Show

By the time ‘Dr Who’ finished, Judy was positively twitchy with excitement. The last of her cheese Whatsits had exploded between her fingers and the atmosphere in the room was infused with an orange glow before our gathered celebrity friends inhaled the dust and filtered it through their pristine lungs. The masculine side of the ampersand, wearing his new kangaroo pouch slippers, barely had time to do one final circuit around the room, topping up glasses with Ronnie Corbett’s nettle wine, before the feminine side was clapping her hands together and demanding our attention for the broadcast of the show that we'd recorded earlier yesterday.

‘Okay, quiet everybody! It’s coming on! Richard, sit down. You’re blocking Sir Clive’s view.’

I gave Sir Clive James an apologetic wave but I think he was too busy finding rhymes for ‘Watch’ to notice. I just propped myself on the edge of a chair where Cilla Black was cradling her half pint of mild.

‘You’ll like this,’ I said to her. She smiled. The poor thing could hardly do otherwise.

From then on it was all about our ‘New Position’. As soon as the theme music began, there was a collective gasp.

‘It’s like being at the first night of Mozart’s Magic Flute,’ said Stephen Fry from near the fireplace.

‘Reminds me of the opening of Star Wars,’ added Patrick Moore who had been one of my surprise guests of the evening. I’d sent him a special invitation after he’d provided a xylophone solo which had been dropped from the theme song.

Our guests got quite excited when they caught their first glimpse of our new set. We had gone with the red after I’d noticed how the glow of Bill Oddie's cheeks made Judy happy during our recent walking tour of the Lake District. What really made the set, however, was the large ampersand which I’d been insistent about having in a prominent place.

I think the guests on the first show were the best we could have hoped for. Samuel L. Jackson is one of my favourite film stars but later on I did bring him to task about his choice of hat. A flat cap in black leather is not for public consumption and certainly not for Channel 109 on Satellite. Conservative politicians have been caught in Soho whipping parlours wearing items significantly less kinky.

Better dressed but hardly a better guest, David Walliams came on the show as Judy’s pick. Despite her paroxysms of flattery about ‘Little Britain’ (and, being the loyal husband, I simply had to join in) I was less sure about David’s contribution to the show. Dribbling water from his mouth was not the way I wanted the show to begin. Dribbing is hardly the message for a show meant to be vibrant and reaching out to an edgy audience. I was similarly disturbed by the game of spot the transvestite, though I hadn’t the heart to tell Judy this at the production meeting .Once she and Rufus Hound (yes, I know!!) get their heads together, there’s not a thing I can do about it. I’d come up with the idea of having him jump from a very great height but Judy had insisted on the introduction of an air bag between him and the concrete pavement.

In the end, I thought it a good beginning and it’s sure to get better. In the coming weeks, I hope to break a few taboos. I’d like our show to be the first to demonstrate the aerodynamics of moles by firing them from Jeremy Clarkson’s new air canon (all, I might add, without air bags). I’d also like to be the first TV show to have its own self-defence class, ending with some celebrity cage fighting for the series finale. But, as I say, they are only ideas at this stage and I’ve yet to see if I’ll be given the chance to challenge myself creatively.

A Quiet Monday Morning

It’s a new week down on Madeley Farm and things aren’t looking good for the livestock. All the web traffic has dried up and the blog is like a dry watering hole with the carcases of my last two posts lying there, teeth exposed in a rictus grin and their prime meat worthless now that it sits dead on the bone. What’s apparent is that many of you are either on holiday or out enjoying this unseasonably warm weather, which is good if you’ve got the caravan perched a five minute walk from the beach but not so good when you’re indoors with a woman with knee ligament damage.

The weekend has been exhausting. When I’ve not been waving a fan over Judy to keep her cool, I’ve been running to the kitchen to swap frozen vegetables for those that have defrosted on her knee. There there’s been the constant guests coming to see how Judy is doing. Cilla Black came by yesterday afternoon and the two of them sang a few of their old favourite songs as I tried to provide accompaniment on the Casio. That’s hard to do when you’re ears are plugged with three inches of tightly packed cotton wadding. I was glad to see her go.

Then there was a visit by the Corbetts and Ronnie’s ill-advised comment that I’m surprised hasn’t been picked up by the media.

‘I don’t suppose... Ha! Oh dear...’ he said as he readjusted his glasses in that way he does. ‘I don’t suppose, Judy, that there’s any chance of you bouncing me on your knee?’

Judy’s face flushed the colour of her knee. Ronnie should have known better since there’s a chance that his weight on Judy’s knee is exactly what’s aggravated the problem in the first place. Again, it came down to Yours Truly to save the day. Once I’d bounced Ronnie on my knee for fifteen minutes he seemed happy. Visits by Judith Chalmers (she prophesised ‘good news in knees’) and Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee went without a hitch and Paul amused Judy by pulling a packet of ice cold baby carrots from behind her ear.

As for Judy, after nearly a week’s rest, cure, and frozen veg, she is feeling much better and is now beginning to get movement in the joint. Another seven days and she’ll be back working on the crazy paving, playing snooker at her local association, and sitting beside me on the Richard&Judy sofa. And for me: that’s when I might feel like writing something uplifting on a Monday morning.

My Letter to Lola's Mum

Dear Lola's Mum,

So, your daughter tells me that that you don't believe that I exist. And just when I thought my week couldn't get any worse... Just when the Press break the news that I've really been away serving in Afghanistan, now my existence is being brought into question. Even the Taliban were never this cruel.

I really don't know how to prove that I do exist. Judy tells me that I exist. Only this morning, she told me that I'd existed too long in bed and I should get up before Cilla arrived to help Judy with her music lessons.

Bill Oddie told me I exist when he rang me to ask if I'd be interested in sponsoring a bumble bee for the new SpringWatch Pollination Challenge. He wanted me to sponsor a bee for 50p per bloom but we settled on a penny per stigma. He then asked me what the noise was in the background. I explained that it was Cilla singing one of her old hits while Judy backed her on the trombone.

I also know I exist because I'll be soon modelling my pyjamas over at Nourishing Obscurity's Great Night Wear Parade.

So, Lola's Mum, the evidence would suggest that I do exist but if you require any more evidence, check out Monday's show. I'll give you a very special look to camera just after the first break. You'll know it's me because I'll nod my head and give you a wink as I introduce the next segment.

All my love,

Richard

It's Not Easy Being Green

Once the phone had cracked open my dreams this morning, it was the smell of fresh bacon that kept me awake. That’s not to say I didn’t want to bury my nose deeper into my pillow, but I could not stop myself drooling over the smell of fried porker rising from the kitchen. My loyalties were split. My pillow damp. My dreams still tangible. I knew I could return to them if only the noise and smell would recede. I could be back in the lesser reality where I’d been wearing a loincloth and wresting a cobra in some faraway place where men with the Madeley surname are normally christened Conan. In the greater reality of everyday life, however, those same men enjoy ripping into bacon, their dentures be damned! This was the only reassurance I had. Dreams or reality: I knew I’d be doing something manly.

I was still chewing on the hard gristle of this dilemma when the bedroom door opened and Judy set the floorboards loose with her heavy tread.

‘It’s somebody called Tarbuck for you,’ she said, pulling back the duvet and exposing my naked flanks to the sunlight.

I shrivelled like Christopher Lee naked on a sunbed. On second thoughts, scrub that bit about Christopher Lee naked on a sunbed. It’s an image with which we’d be unwise to start the week. I suggest you replace it with a picture of uncurled mimosa under drops of spring rain. It has the advantage of added freshness and significantly less droop.

‘Tell them I’ll call them back,’ I muttered as I rolled over and sought dragons to smite.

Judy just took my hand and wrapped it around the handset.

‘Talk to the man,’ she hissed. She sounded quite cobra-like and was lucky I didn’t swing a keen edged blade at her head. Decisive action tends to be the way of all men called Conan or Madeley.

‘Speak mortal,’ I said, and by this you might guess that I was still a bit befuddled by sleep.

‘Hello? Richard?’ said a voice. ‘It’s Jimmy.’

‘Jimmy?’ I repeated. My mind grabbed the two names I’d been handed and shoved them manfully together. I was surprised by the result. ‘Jimmy Tarbuck?’

‘The very same. Now listen here, my old mucker. Those of us still up here in lovely Liverpool miss you and Judy enormously. We still drink to your health at the Dog and Duck near the Albert Dock, and your picture still hangs on the wall of the snug.’

‘Does it really?’

‘It does,’ he replied. ‘Though, to be honest, Richard, your mugshot got a bit shabby since Stan Boardman bought himself a new set of darts. He never misses now. But listen… We were talking about giving you and your good lady wife a very special opportunity on this fine day in January.’

I rolled over onto my back. I find it’s the best place to take advantage of very special opportunities on fine days in January. It’s also the best position from which to pick fluff from your navel. ‘And what opportunity would that be?’ I said as I flicked a small bail of cotton from between my fingertips.

‘A chance to do some good,’ said Tarby. ‘Listen, I can’t talk about it on the phone. Hush-hush and all that but we’re on our way to London and we could easily drop in to see you.’

‘Sure, sure,’ I said and my hand also moved south to put a parting in my hair down there to match the one upstairs. ‘You know you’re always welcome, Jimmy.’

Judy wasn’t so sure when I mentioned it to her over breakfast. ‘I thought I recognised that voice,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think gap-toothed Scouse comedian.’

‘That’s probably because you’ve forgotten your roots, my girl,’ I replied. ‘You also wanted to move away from the north. You never liked it in Liverpool, whereas I still wear my love for the city on my sleeve.’

‘That’s not actually true, is it, Richard?’ she scolded. ‘You were the one who said that London would be better for our careers. You were also the one who scuttled Fred Talbot in our back garden because you said he’d defile the Thames.’

‘As well you know, Judy, that’s not been proved. But I was right about London being good for our careers. And I’m right about this too. Men like Tarbuck know a thing or two about bank balances. If he’s got an opportunity for us, I expect we’ll double our fortune in weeks.’

She looked at me and shook her head. ‘Well if we’re going to have guests, I suggest you do up your fly or comb your hair.’

I did both, numerous times, during the anxious wait before the taxi arrived at half past one. The three figures that piled out the back were all familiar in one way or another. The rotund guy in a blazer was known to us all as Tarbuck, though behind him was a thinner man in a suit that didn’t quite fit.

‘Look who that is behind Tarby,’ said Judy, peering through a gap in the curtains.

I looked again. ‘Dear lord!’ I gasped, recognising the jacket thick with shimmering sequins. ‘Is it Doddy? And if I’m not mistaken, isn’t that Cilla behind them?’

Judy let out a squeal of delight. ‘Oh, it is!’ she said and rushed to the front door to greet the three most famous Liverpudlians who aren’t called Ringo or suffer an allergy to wooden shanks.

‘Surprise, surprise,’ screamed Cilla as soon as she saw me in the hall.

‘Hello Cilla,’ I said and bent low to kiss her cheek. ‘I hope you’re well.’

‘Course I am, chuck,’ she replied but became distracted by a commotion coming from upstairs.

‘Save my manuscripts before you save yourselves!’ cried Stephen Fry, suddenly appearing on the landing. His face was white with fright, though he flushed slightly as soon as he saw five of the nation’s top celebrities staring up at him. ‘Somebody did shout fire, didn’t they?’ he asked.

‘Calm yourself, Stephen. It’s just Cilla,’ I said as Liverpool’s favourite daughter began to wipe her lipstick from my cheek. I couldn’t blame him for his reaction. Fleeing to fire escapes is how most people react when experiencing a visit from Cilla without adequate warning.

‘Ah,’ said Stephen, giving a dark look towards the woman he’s still not forgiven for her behaviour at our last Christmas party. ‘Well, if you want me,’ he said, retreating a step, ‘I’ll be in my room teaching myself Urdu.’

I had to smile at the poor man’s cameo in this tale. Urdu indeed!

‘Hello Dick,’ said Jimmy Tarbuck, suddenly with his arm around my shoulder. ‘You’re looking fitter than a Korean’s whippet. You know Ken, don’t you?’

‘I think we’ve met a few times,’ I replied, shaking the King of the Diddymen by his tickling stick.

‘And it is a quite splendiferous moment to be meeting you, Sir Dick,’ said Doddy. ‘Very exciting. Very exciting indeed. In fact, it makes me want to shove a bag of flour down my pants and say “how’s this for self raising?” By George! Do you know how tickled I am? I’m so tickled that my chuckle muscle’s got lodged behind my joke junction. That’s half a titter above my mirth mound.’

‘I won’t ask about that,’ I replied as Judy began to lead us all into the main room. She and Cilla immediately broke away, leaving me to talk with the two funniest men in Liverpool.

‘So,’ I said, ‘can you finally tell me about this opportunity you’re so excited about?’

Tarbuck grinned, the gap in his teeth such a happy reminder of the harbour gates at Albert Dock.

‘Do you like ventriloquism, Richard?’ he asked.

‘Who doesn’t?’ I said in reply. And, indeed: who doesn’t?

‘Who indeed,’ smiled Doddy who waved his feather duster in delight. ‘How lucky we are! How lucky we are, ladies and gentlemen! I always say a good ventriloquist is like a good wife. You don’t see the best ones moving their lips.’

I gave Ken a questioning on your behalf before I thought to take the conversation into a twenty first century free of comic misogynism.

‘But this is so strange that you ask me about this,’ I said. ‘Only last night I watched a film set in the world of ventriloquism. It was called “Dead Silence” and was about old ventriloquist came back from the dead to haunt her killers with her reanimated puppets.’

‘Well, this has got nothing to do with reanimated corpses entertaining us with magic,’ said Jimmy. ‘We’re here to meet Paul Daniels.’

‘Not Paul Daniels, famous assistant to the lovely Debbie McGee?’

‘The very same. He’s organising the Variety Club’s 2008 appeal.’

‘Charity?’ I said, my hopes taking a slump.

‘Ah, but this year it’s not just charity for the children,’ said Doddy. ‘Heavens no! This year we’re helping one of our own. Keith Harris needs our help.’

‘It isn’t easy being green,’ I muttered, giving a shiver.

For those of you not in the know, Keith Harris would be the UK’s most respected ventriloquist had he not allied himself with the world’s most irritating puppet. His career is based around the pitiful sight of a small green bird, of indistinct gender and breed, who wears a large nappy and talks in an irritating voice.

‘That’s right,’ said Jimmy. ‘We’ve asked Keith to lead this year’s campaign and we were hoping to give him career a bit of a boost while we’re at it.’

‘And that,’ added Ken, ‘is the reason we have come south. We want you and Mrs. Madeley to have Keith on your show next week.’

‘I doubt if we could do that,’ I said. ‘Channel 4 audiences are quite sophisticated. Besides, we’re running the Richard&Judy Puppies in Woollens competition.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ asked Tarby.

It didn’t take me a moment to reconsider. If I’d learned any lesson from ‘Dead Silence’, it was that ventriloquists are a breed of men and women who take offence at the slightest thing and are more than capable of launching a killing spree from beyond the grave. ‘Hypothetically speaking,’ I replied, ‘do you think Keith Harris would ever come back and haunt the people who’ve mocked Orville over the years?’

‘I’m sure that he would,’ said Jimmy. ‘He’s suffered a lifetime of abuse from audiences, which is why we want to set things right. I’m sure there’s not a ventriloquist alive that would be as justified if he sought out his bloody revenge on his tormentors.’

‘Then count us in,’ I said. ‘Like I’ve always said, Judy and I are proud to call ourselves two of the biggest Keith Harris and Orville fans in the country.’

‘How tittyfalarious!’ cried Dodd. ‘I’m over the moon with nincombobulation. I’m like the blind midget in the lady’s sauna. It’s not how I look like but how I feel…’

‘Smashing,’ said Jimmy.

‘You’ve what?’ asked Judy in the kitchen ten minutes later.

I explained about my fears of being haunted by the ghost of Orville.

‘It’s perfect,’ I said. ‘Who better to judge dogs in woollens than a man whose made his career with a green duck in a nappy? And it saves me the trouble of writing to all the viewers who complain that I chose the wrong dog.’

‘You’ve lost it this time,’ said Judy. ‘I thought you’d hit bottom when you stopped wearing underpants. But this…’

‘Surprise! Surprise!’ said Cilla, barging her way into the kitchen. ‘Everything alright, chucks?’

I put on my best smile and carried two coffees into the front room. Things, I knew, would indeed be alright…

The First Horseman Wears A Bright Orange Jacket

Late last night, or more accurately, early this morning, I was at something of a loose end but not yet quite ready for bed. The New Year had come in with me home alone but I was also in one of my rare moods of mild optimism. Judy had left me with five party poppers to pull once Big Ben struck midnight, while she’d gone off to celebrate with her friends. I had missed out, being, as you know, still full of a cold. Forced to forgo the revelry, I’d counted down to the New Year on my own, popped my poppers, and then sat beneath the trails of crepe paper that came raining down on me. It was bliss. You just can’t know what a relief it is to a man to know that he’s avoided for another year having to kiss Cilla Black as she screams ‘Happy New Year everybody!’ I was beginning 2008 with that rare luxury of full hearing and I decided to use it profitably by doing a bit of channel surfing just to see how the year’s television was shaping up.

I quickly turned off the usual celebrations on BBC1 and ITV. There are few things guaranteed to lower the spirits than watching drunk celebs getting maudlin about ‘the people who can’t be with us tonight’. The truth is so very different. They don’t give a Brylcreemed fig about other people, just where the next drink is coming from and whose keys they’ll be picking out of the ashtray at the end of the evening. Instead, I loitered on Trains, Planes, and Automobiles on Channel 4 which remains one of my favourite comedies of the eighties. But, since I’d come in halfway through it, I didn’t want to spoil it for myself and I flicked over to BBC2.

That’s when my blood froze the flesh to my bone. There on the screen was a horror so great that should I have heard the dolorous chants of the undead coming from the kitchen, I would have ran to them with a joyful trip to my step. The sight that greeted me on BBC2 was the perfect embodiment of New Year and why I’ve learned to hate it so much.

The show was ‘Jules Holland's Hootenanny’ but the screen was all Lenny Henry. His big round bald head was pushed right into the camera’s lens and he was pulling a face like a demented lunatic, mouth wide open, eyes squeezed together. Every blocked pore on his thickly made up chin was visible among the stubble, his nostrils and mouth three gaping holes hiding the unknown horrors of the year ahead. I’m just thankful that I get through most years without coming into close contact with the man. That he should be there, front and centre, within minutes of the start of a new year is a bad sign. In 1987 I remember turning on the TV and seeing Bill Oddie playing the spoons. That year turned out to be a very good one.

Having a tipsy Cilla Black bearing down on you is nothing compared with Lenny Henry forcing his ‘craziness’ on the nation. In fact, there are very few sights that can guarantee to turn my stomach so quickly. There are people inside the business who think that Lenny is a comic genius. They are the very same people who are doing so much to make me prematurely grey by promoting Alan Carr as though he’s the best cure for constipation.

The character of the self-appointed ‘funny man’ is more odorous than any. They share in those same mistaken principals that lie behind the vividly coloured jackets that too many TV presenters wear in the belief that it gives them personality. Lenny has made a career by making loud noises and grinning like a village idiot. The gulf between his act and his real life are more obvious than we find with most comedians, which makes his act all the more onerous. I want to tell him to calm down, to assure him that he doesn’t need to be ‘on’ all the time. He needn’t be ‘funny’ in order to be funny.

I’ll be writing at this at more length later in the year when I’ll be giving The Richard Dimbleby Lecture, with a paper titled ‘Comedy for the Credulous: An Argument Against Lenny Henry’.

In the meantime, I just have to say that I fear for 2008.

Watch this space.