Why I've Not Been Sleeping

Hell of a week last week. I think I’ll say that again and, since I don’t care what Judy says about the carpet, I’ll do it in capitals. HELL. OF. A. WEEK!

Was that too much? It’s just that, as Paul O’Grady once discovered, there are only so many times a man of my undeniable charm but limited patience can be insulted before he strikes back. Only this time, there’s no need for any bottles of hot chilli sauce, plastic funnels, nor any rubber gloves and boxes of doggy treats.

‘I’ve got a good feeling about the Algerian entry,’ said the voice on the phone.
I rubbed my eyes and peered over at the digital. 4.30 in the morning. This was the third time in the week that the phone had woken me in the early hours. The bed squeaked as Judy rolled over, disturbed. She muttered something about monkfish before she lifted the duvet and slid beneath Slumberland’s finest. The snores resumed but the voice remained indifferent to Judy’s plight or the significance of large gilled North Atlantic anglerfish to the ongoing narrative.

‘I’ve got a few witty remarks about the Lithuanians,’ it said. ‘You want to hear them, Dick? Or would you prefer to hear all my Pole jokes?’

‘It’s you again, isn’t it Graham?’ I replied.

‘Of course it’s me,’ said Norton. ‘Who else would be talking about the Eurovision at four thirty in the morning? After all, I’m the only person the BBC have trusted to host the Euro gig.’

History. That’s what this came down to. History, a presenter with leading-man good looks, and the BBC mafia. If it’s the stuff of a Guy Richie film, this would be the moment when the camera makes a quick detour up the trouser leg of an extra and then does a quick 360 degree time-lapse business around the bushes and to that moment about a month ago when I was standing in one of London’s trendier media cafes. Queue the caption. ‘Somewhere in Soho’.

‘He’s here, everybody!’ cried Harry Hill who could clearly see everything from atop a pair of brothel creepers with six inches of creped soul. ‘Lock up your onions or they might fly away!’

If I’d known how those strange words would one day leave Judy muttering ‘monkfish’ at four thirty in the morning I might not have joined in the applause as I stood there, shoulder to shoulder with all the nation’s top presenters. Jonathan Ross was in his pink eel-skin suit (sourced from renewable eels) and Michael Parkinson was in something made from unemployed mine worker. Joining us were Des O’Connor, Paul O’Grady, Brucie Forsyth, Alan Carr, Angus Deaton, Sandy Toksvig... Even Alan Titchmarsh was there, sitting by the fire with a cup of Horlicks resting on his lap.

‘By ‘eck,’ he said. ‘This is a proper do.’

He was right. It was very proper do, only there was no time to reflect on my position among the nation’s ruling elite. There was a sudden ripple of applause and the crowd parted to allow the honour guard to enter the room along with the man we were all there to meet.

I recognised the earlobes immediately. They were earlobes I was hoping to follow; earlobes I hoped to emulate. They were earlobes that had suffered many years of abuse from listening to Eurovision hits; earlobes in London to announce the name of the man or woman who was to land the most highly prized job in television.

‘My children, becalm your beating hearts!’ said Sir Terry Wogan. ‘Too much... It’s all too much for a tired old pro to bear in his dotage...’

What class! The Pope of Radio 2 then began to walk slowly down the line of celebs, shaking our hands. He paused at Wossy and Jonathan kneeled down and kissed the papal ring on Terry’s little finger.

‘Bwess you, good sir,’ said Ross. ‘You are a fine example to all of us pwestenters who hope to follow in your fine footsteps. Now is there any chance I can get your phone number? I might need to wing you in the future, should I discover people impersonating you on Twitter.’

Terry smiled and blessed him with a hand to Jonathan’s brow before he moved on to me.

‘Richard. So good of you to make it,’ he said.

‘It’s not weally Wichard,’ whispered Wossy, leaning into the conversation. Terry ignored the slur, which has been sadly repeated on other occasions and despite the evidence otherwise.

‘There’s always room on the good ship Beeb for hearty fellows with few discernable skills,’ said Wogan in a confident voice. ‘I’m sure you’ll fit right in.’
From anybody else, it would have been an insult. But this was Terry and Terry means a lot to me. Finally, with great ceremony, Wogan went over to where Titchmarsh was sitting.

‘It’s Terry Wogan,’ explained June Whitfield who was acting as Alan’s minder for the day. ‘He’s come to announce the name of the next presenter of Eurovision. You’d like to host Eurovision, wouldn’t you, Alan?’

‘By eck! It’s a proper do!’ cried Titchmarsh again, so excited that he raised his mug and splashed his Horlicks all over June. I’m not sure the poor fellow understood a thing of what was going on. He’s not been the same since they Charlie Dimock’s breasts were dropped from BBC1.

Finally, Terry made his way to the fireplace where he posed for photographers and then it was time for the ceremony, which was to be led by the head of BBC light entertainment. Personally, I still blame the guy for the second series of ‘Little Miss Jocelyn’ so I paid little attention to a long and frankly boring speech about the role of the colour pink in the BBC light entertainment department. But from what I did hear, pink has a surprisingly important role and, naturally, it was all music to Jonathan’s ears which were pink to their own considerable lobes. By the time the speech was over, I felt distinctly out of place and I thought it a bad omen that Terry was handed a pink envelope containing the name of the chosen presenter.

‘Ah,’ said Wogan, ‘it’s been many a year since I was in a room, much like this one, eagerly awaiting Diddy David Hamilton to open the envelope to see who would follow him in this great role. It’s a great honour for any presenter to be given the job of commentating the Eurovision Song Contest; to be sent to foreign climes to mock the tastes of our continental friends. And now it’s time to see which of you will be given the high honour of continuing my xenophobic rant towards foreigners. I see some of our most talented names in presenting in the room. I also see Richard Madeley standing there. Ah, Richard. You’re a man after my own mustard. We’ve both been cut from the same cloth. Good luck to you, good sir!’

‘Good luck everybody!’ cried Titchmarsh to the great amusement of all. ‘Ooh, it’s a grand do!’

There was a twinkle in Terry’s eye as he tore open the envelope.

‘And now, with no more further ceremony,’ he said, ‘it’s time to announce the name of the scurvy dog who will be following me on the good ship Eurovision. And... that person is...’

There was a collective gasp. Had I even heard the name? I must have heard something because I stepped forward as if to shake Terry’s hand. Luckily, I was spared any embarrassment when a mirrorball rolled past me and unfurled itself in the middle of the room to take Wogan in its arms. I thought it was some strange form of pink protest until Terry returned the hug but thankfully none of the kisses.

‘By ‘eck, that was a proper turn of events,’ said Titchmarsh who was now standing at my side, June Whitfield on his arm. ‘Imagine them giving the job to him. Ah well. It means my Aunt Rose won’t be watching it this year. Too many references to sausages. My Aunt Rose doesn’t like references to sausages. But by gum, this was a grand do!’
And like that, it was over with Graham Norton taking the applause and the best job in showbusiness. Queue the time lapsed trouser leg and back to me in my bed at four thirty on a weekday morning.

‘Listen Graham,’ I said, softly so as to not disturb Judy, snoring heavily somewhere under the duvet. ‘I hold no grudges. The BBC have clearly decided that Eurovision is going to abandon its small but loyal following among heterosexual men who only watched it for Terry’s witty banter and the legs on the sultry French dancers. If the BBC are to ignore a man as talented as the man Madeley and choose to embrace the camp aesthetic in a spectacular way, then I’m glad they’ve given you the job.’

‘Really?’ squealed Norton. ‘You really mean that?’

‘I do,’ I said. ‘I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful night in Moscow with your double entendres and I predict that the national outcry will mean that the BBC will seek out a safer pair of hands next year. Perhaps a handsome pair of hands that know how to make subtle but biting references to the Turkish entrant’s moustache and her resemblance to a Chuckle Brother.’

And with that, I hung up the phone.

‘Who was that?’ muttered Judy.

‘Nobody of importance,’ I said as I lay smirking in the dark. ‘Now get back to your monkfish. I’ve got to think of something funny to say about Bulgarian glam rockers in time for next year.’

The Dwarf Killer

‘Aren’t you cutting the lawn today, Richard?’

I hadn’t anticipated the question but that’s just typical of what happens when breezes blow away the clouds and the rain steps aside in favour of a spot of sunny weather. About all I could manage was a sigh and a look of moral discomfort.

‘Again?’ I asked. ‘But I only cut it a few months ago.’

Judy lowered her Sunday Times. ‘You’re meant to cut it every fortnight during the summer,’ she said in that snippy way she has when distracted from her Sunday morning Appleyard.

I looked out on the garden and our acres of lush lawn. I had to admit that it had got a little out of hand. A dab of yellow in the middle was the cap of the gnome we’d had made from a full sized body cast of Bill Oddie. There the grass was approaching the four foot mark, already in long trousers and probably in need of a firm hand, if not a stern talking to.

‘Right then,’ I said, setting aside my novelisation of Chekov’s ‘Cherry Orchard’, ‘I’ll cut the lawn but I want you to remember this the next time I want you to help me, Jude.’

Judy muttered something that sounded like a promise and I went upstairs to squeeze myself into my lawn mowing clothes including bright orange overalls and fireproof balaclava.

Having a larger than average lawn means having a larger than average lawnmower. You can forget about Hover Mowers or anything by Qualcast. I own the most powerful lawn-razing beast in the region. In polite company, I call it ‘The Green Machine’ but privately prefer ‘The Dwarf Killer’ because of the many plaster dwarves that have gone under its blades, through its threshing mechanism, crushed in its mangle, and spewed out of its high velocity incinerating nozzle. It’s a high octane crop destroyer and has a top speed somewhere near the Mach.

I had backed The DK out of the garage and was in the process of swilling gas around the engine when a voice over my shoulder provided an interruption.

‘Sounds like you’ve got a supercharger in there,’ it said.

I turned off the engine and looked around.

‘Jeremy!’ I cried, delighted to see my old friend Clarkson. I even whipped off my balaclava to greet him with a smile. ‘How fortunate that you should be in the neighbourhood when I’m dealing with heavy machinery.’

‘Fortunate indeed,’ said Jeremy. ‘A coincidence that you’d find it hard to believe should you read about it in unpublished fiction.’

‘Pah!’ I said. ‘I’ve read much worse in published fiction. Technically minded men appositely arriving in the vicinity of lawn mowers is nothing new to me...’

‘So,’ said Jeremy, raising his eyebrows. ‘Are you taking her for a spin?’

‘More than a spin,’ I replied. ‘I’m doing the whole Madeley estate. It’s time to lay waste to grass.’

His eyes widened as if catching up with the brows. ‘I don’t suppose I can have a go?’

I jumped up as though my name were called in a tanning salon.

‘Jeremy, it would be an honour,’ I said, gesturing him to take the driver’s seat.

Jeremy slid behind the wheel and turned the big ignition switch. Then it was like the throttle cable was linked to his teeth muscles. His big yellow grin appeared each time the engine blew smoke.

‘Just take it easy,’ I warned.

But it was too late. With a squeal of caterpillar tracks and the sound of the twin chainsaw blades scraping against concrete, Jeremy was off down the drive and heading towards the back lawn. There was nothing I could do but watch as Jeremy hit the wall of grass and vanished in a cloud of smoke and cuttings.

When he emerged, fifteen minutes later, he was green with grass sap but high on destruction.

‘Wonderful machine,’ said Jeremy as he jumped from the seat.

I was more concerned about the state of The Dwarf Killer. After half a lawn, a long gash had appeared down its side and a fender was bent near the weed cudgel. More worrying was the evidence of something that had passed through the inlet to the edging scythes.

‘What’s this?’ I asked, wiping something crimson from the blades.

Jeremy peered down. ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘Perhaps a field mouse?’

I jammed my hand into the inlet and felt something soft. I gave it a tug.

‘Do field mice wear leather?’ I asked, holding out a piece of soft leather in an unfortunate shade of pink.

Jeremy just shrugged. It wasn’t even a reassuring shrug. This was that shrug that guilty men give in courts when they’ve already been given two consecutive life sentences for committing abnormal acts in graveyards with the residents of obituary columns.

‘Funny,’ I said. ‘I wonder how this got in there...’

It was at that point that I heard the familiar cry of Graham Norton drifing from across the road.

‘Mugwump! Oh Mugwump!’ he sang.

‘Damn distracting,’ said Jeremy.

‘It’s the name of the Graham’s dog,’ I explained. ‘An animal that gives scabid rats a bad name. I can’t tell you the number of times that dog has attacked me in my own front garden. A horrid beast which he pampers terribly by dressing it its own waistcoat fashioned from soft pink leather.’

Jeremy looked down at the piece of leather between my fingers and then looked towards the lawn mower. It took me a few attempts but I finally latched on to what he meant when he began to laugh like a manic idiot and his face flushed red.

‘Oh,’ I said, dropping the leather. ‘I see.’

Jeremy launched himself for the driver’s seat once again.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m going to see what’s hiding in the other half of your lawn,’ he said. ‘If I’m lucky, I might even hit Oddie.’

I hadn’t the heart to rob him of his illusions when he hit the replica Oddie five minutes later. It would have been a cruel thing to do when he’d done so much good, cut so much grass, and trimmed so much dog from my woefully overgrown life.

The Surprise Beneath Graham Norton's Buttocks

‘Dick!’

The cry was startling; a limp, less-than-manly wail in the night that hinted of embroidered slippers and silk dressing gowns. It was not the sort of cry a man could ignore. This man threw back the sheets and ran for the window.

‘Dick!’

There it was again. A trilling call that penetrated thick curtains and triple glazing.

‘My god, Dick! Where are you?’

I pulled back a curtain and pressed my nose to the window. My breath clouded the scene but the sight was unmistakable. There, standing in the middle of Judy’s best astroturf, was a luminescent Graham Norton sitting astride a figure dressed in combat camouflage whose struggling gestures merged into the terrain. Look again and the figure would disappear, leaving Graham squatting in the middle of the lawn. Either way, it was a spectacle I couldn't ignore.

‘Richard? What’s wrong?’

Judy sat up in bed, peering out from beneath her eyeshades.

‘It’s Norton,’ I said, grabbing my trousers and slipping them over kneecap. ‘He’s out there riding a stranger on our lawn.’

‘Not again! What time is it?’

The digital didn’t hold back with the truth. ‘A quarter past four,’ I said, arming myself with a shirt and sweater.

I was down the stairs and unlocking the front door by the time Judy was out of bed. I could hear her heavy footsteps as she marched to the wardrobe and began to dress. I was glad to have her as backup. It made me feel like I was a member of NATO.

This was the third occasion on which Norton has woken me in the last month. The first two times, he’d come hammering on the front door claiming to have spotted a prowler on our property. Now, by the looks of things, he’d bagged himself a suspect.

‘Thank god!’ said Graham as I appeared on the porch. ‘I was beginning to wonder how long it would take you.’

‘What exactly are you doing, Graham?’ I asked. ‘And who’s that you’re sitting on?’

‘The Prowler,’ replied Norton, the brazen ‘P’ standing out from the reticent crowd. ‘I’ve sensed that there’s been somebody loitering in the neighbourhood and I waited up to see if I could catch him.’

The figure said something like ‘earnest gnus eat liquorice’ but the whole thing was muffled by Graham’s cheeks. They were doing such an admirable job of keeping the man’s face pressed down into the turf that you’d think that they’d had plenty of practice. I just shook my head at the banality of it all. Since Graham moved into the neighbourhood a few months ago, we’ve hardly spoke. The fact that he’s the prime candidate to take over from Terry Wogan on Eurovision has been enough to put him in my bad books and this latest episode was not going to change that. It’s bad enough that my own cynical approach to European pop has been rejected in favour of his crude innuendos but now he was subduing a pair of boots that I recognised only too well.

‘Could you get off him now, Graham?’ I asked, too tired for manners. ‘Not only have you made a terrible mistake but you’ve probably endangered wildlife.’

‘Wildlife?’ he repeated. The poor man just had no idea.

I nodded down at the green Wellingtons. ‘I suspect that the man currently struggling for air beneath your buttocks is the BBC’s finest nature correspondent and the man who’s is single-handedly restoring the owl population of this undisclosed area of North London.’

Graham looked down between his thighs. I think he was surprised to find Bill Oddie lying there.

‘Owls!’ shouted Bill as the weight came off his back. He stood up and lashed out at Graham who took the blow manfully.

‘Ooh!’ he said, rubbing the spot on his right knee where Oddie’s blow had landed.

‘What’s your game?’ asked Bill. ‘I’m out here waiting to see if the barn owls are taking to their new home in Richard’s shed and then you, you great nancy, come jumping out of the bushes.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Graham.

‘Sorry? Do you know how many years it has taken me to get the natural musk of the forest? I spent a month living with moles just so I could move among animals without them fearing me. And now look at me? I smell like a teenage girl left too long in Boots.’ He sniffed an arm. ‘Is that jasmine? Is that jasmine?’

‘That’s "Charm For Men",’ protested Graham.

‘I knew it,’ cried Bill, as though his world had come to an end. ‘I smell of jasmine! Oh, my mole musk! Gone! All gone!’

I wasn’t for charm, jasmine, moles, or even Bill Oddie. It was nearly half past four on a Saturday morning and Judy had just appeared on the doorstep wielding her best fairway wood.

‘It’s been a terrible misunderstanding,’ I said. ‘Bill, you should be thankful that there are men like Graham looking out for his neighbours. But Graham, you should be thankful that there are men like Bill looking out for the owls. I’ve given Bill permission to come and go as he likes on our property and I don't take kindly to your hiding in our shrubbery. I think you own Bill an apology.’

‘Apologise! To him! I shan’t.’

Judy was now at my shoulder and looked menacing with her 3 wood.

‘Graham,’ she said, ‘you will apologise this instant or I’ll knock you into next week.’

‘She can do it,’ I said. ‘It’s only a short par 4 away.’

But Graham was too proud to be moved by threats. That's what comes of being a protected species in the BBC light entertainment schedule. He brushed a few flecks of mud from his sequined purple jacket before he aimed a spiteful look at the shortest man on the green.

‘Bill Oddie,’ he said, ‘you might fool some people with all this talk about owls but I know different. It’s not right for a grown man to be prowling people’s gardens in the middle of the night. It's not even right for him to be hanging around BBC2.’

And without another word, he flounced off into the shadows, taking the charm of jasmine with him.

Bill just stood there, looking as grim as he is really quite harmless.

‘Come on Bill,’ I said. ‘Let’s pop around the back and I’ll wipe you down with some old leaves. We’ll have you smelling of moles before you know it.’

‘Yes,’ added Judy, kindly putting her arm around his shoulders. ‘You go with Richard. There’s not a man alive who knows more about compost.’

And indeed there isn’t. But it still makes a man happy to hear such kind words coming from his wife of so many years.