Blackpool, Oddie and The Twitch

We were outside Banbury when the prawn sandwiches kicked in. I remember saying 'you'll be okay once we get to the Sandbach Services.' Even I knew that was one crazy mixed up notion from a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt in the middle of winter and driving far in excess of thirty.

'I need the bathroom,' cried Dr. Oddzo from the back of the Cadillac. We were racing up the M40 toward the North West and his spiritual and real home.

'Can't you squeeze your buttocks together and wait?' I cried through the rush of air ramping over the windscreen.

Dr. Oddzo groaned and climbed into the passenger's seat from where he raised his feet onto the dashboard. They barely reached.

'Ooohhh!' he cried.

'And I'm in complete agreement, you cowardly fool,' I replied through teeth clenched onto my cigarette holder with tar filter. 'I demand that you write that down and charge me a fortune for such good legal advice. Now, aim your rear towards Yorkshire. That thing could go off at any moment.'

'I feel sick,' complained my companion.

It was a bewildering confession. 'I thought you twitchers could regurgitate your food,' I answered. 'Bring it up, man! Bring it up! Let's get this nightmare over before I begin to see bats.'

I swerved out of the way of a camper van, the screech of metal against barrier masking Dr. Oddzo's retching but not the aroma of partially digested seafood.

This jaunt to Blackpool was becoming unholy; a jihad of devilishly tricky from a man broad at the hips and equally broad all over. Dr. Oddzo had caused trouble since we'd set off in the early hours of Saturday morning. All I could see in the rear view mirror was the scrotum of a large bronzed statue stuck in the back of the car, the only reminder of his detour through the village of Bishop's Heaton. The statue had fallen into when the Cadillac had Dr. Oddzo at the wheel. He had crashed through the idyllic rural square and its usual weekend market. My attorney had dealt with the fallout by signing autographs, making promises to come back with a crew to film the local owls population, and by sampling the local prawn sandwiches.

'When we get to Blackpool, we are staying the best hotel in town,' I told him after his retching had eased. 'No talk about money when you're with me, Dr. Oddzo.'

'Richard, I'm not going to make it,' he said, wiping his pallid brow. 'I'm going to be sick again.'

'Excellent,' I answered, 'now let me steer into the wind and lets see if you can take a few of these bastards out...'

Ten minutes later, Dr. Oddzo was feeling no better but his face was the same ripe colour as the breast of the Lesser Green Woodcock. It meant that he was in the perfect frame of mine to listen to my story about my bad week. After two days of hell working on 'Eye of the Storm 2', I had discovered that the CDs onto which I'd backed up my novel were blank. Judy had found me on Friday morning, crying in the middle of the lawn. I'd explained how a 60,000 word manuscript had been lost when my laptop broke the other week and that this was as big a loss to the world as the destruction of the second book of Aristotle's 'Poetics'.

'Blackpool is going to restore my spirits,' I told him. 'Losing 60,000 words of a novel is not a good feeling but if a cabaret midget covered with superglue and glitter can't cheer a man up then I don't know what can.'

Dr. Oddzo was too busy staring into the distance to answer.

His attention was taken by a figure looming at us from the side of the road. Lank and Northern, the youth was measured by his perplexities and general demeanour of the heavily sedated. He waved us down. A sign written on damp cardboard hung around his neck and read simply: 'The Twitch'.

I pulled over and made some outrageous remarks about his clothes which he didn't seem to take to heart. He simply adjusted his lime green cummerbund over his purple braces and then buttoned his evening suit.

'Hi guys,' said The Twitch. 'You've taken your time.'

' No time for small talk,' I told him. 'Climb in and watch out for the bronzed scrotum.'

The Twitch jumped onboard and I floored the accelerator.

'What's the rush?' shouted the Twitch. 'We've got all weekend.'

'That's enough of that talk,' I replied, thinking I was losing my mind and fearing that I'd been foolish in trying such an adventure without a proper guide. 'You're only young so I can forgive you but this Madeley is a man in a rush for success.' I proceeded to tell him about the disaster with my novel but he seemed less interested in the man at the wheel than the shrunken figure in the passenger's seat.

He leaned over and looked at Dr. Oddzo who had fallen asleep.

'What's his trip?' asked the Twitch.

'Prawns,' I said.

'Cool,' he answered. 'How about some mayonnaise? I have egg sandwiches in my bag.'

Dr. Oddzo groaned and leaned into the wind. The town of Barnt Green never stood a chance.

Dr. Oddzo's Shotgun Therapy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bill looked hurt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The gun kicked. The can sang its death note.

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

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

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

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

'The RSPB crest?' suggested Bill.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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