Restautrant Review: Albert’s Shed, Manchester

My blogging activities are limited since I’m still in this strange corner of Manchester where the weather is sultry, the men dress as women, and everybody sports tribal tattoos. The office overlooks a drag club, a Turkish restaurant and a college which isn’t a college since it doesn’t have students, just a woman who spends her day stamping certificates. We’re not far from the pub known as ‘Paddy’s Goose’, which I noticed this morning is actually called ‘The Famous Paddy’s Goose’. I admire their bravado.

Yesterday was taken up with high level meetings and lunch at a restaurant called ‘Albert’s Shed’. Apparently, the shed used to belong to a man called Albert who used it to store his tools. He only moved out after they agreed to name the restaurant after him. I can’t help but feel that Albert got a raw deal. Not only did they renege on their agreement and name the restaurant after his shed but it was a shed bigger than most people’s homes. Air conditioned too. Albert should have managed his property portfolio more carefully, what with real estate prices in the fashionable Castlefield area of the city. He would now be living on the Med, having his shovels polished by supermodels.

The meal itself went well, beginning to with delicious shiitake mushrooms. The waitress must have heard the joke before. She didn’t react when I pronounced them ‘shit-ache’, which is closer to how they were written on the menu. I then made the mistake of ordering their ‘spiced pizza’, which I expected to be a slice of bread with a little topping. It was, in fact, a full pizza covered by red chillies (possibly the Dorset Naga). I spent the whole meal blubbering into my jug of iced water and seeing visions of Albert and his shovels.

Possibly the most interest part of the meal was the other customers: a large group of men wearing big collars and even bigger shades, pinstriped suits over bodies honed by months in the gym or prison yard. The person buying lunch looked over and muttered ‘no doubt they’re in property’. I wasn’t so sure. If an armoured car gets taken down in the next week, I can identify the suspects. They all ate ten ounce sirloin steaks at £16 a pop.

I will return to normal blogging activities over the weekend. Until then, I’ll simply sign off.

The Famous Dick Madeley.

Silly Film Titles

I’m away in Manchester for two days, so have some of my Twitter nonsense from last night. The theme was #welshfilms:

The League of Extraordinarily Hairy Gentlemen
FF for Vendetta
Whatever Happened To Baby Jones
The Lllllllllion King
The Ex-Coalminer’s Daugher
Buck Rogers in the Nineteenth Century
A Farewell to Rams
Austin Powys: Man of Mystery
Kung Fu Rhondda
Mad Max Boyce
The Silence of the Lambs Who Accepted The Out Of Court Settlement
Three Men And A Baby And A Pickaxe
Don’t Tell Mam That The Babysitter’s English
Hairy Potter And the Half-Blood Prince of Wales
Bridgend’s Too Far
Eisteddfod Scissorhands
The Bloody English Patient

And my personal favourite:

An American Werewolf in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

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The Fred Dinenage Appreciation Society

A quick note to the person(s) arriving here this afternoon, searching for the 'Fred Dinenage Appreciation Society': sorry to break it to you but I very much doubt if there is one. I've got nothing against Fred Dineage but he was yesterday's man. This blog is about today, men who have a strong connection with youth, talk their talk, walk their walk, and allow their trousers to hang loosely around their hips, revealing three inches of underpant (if I wore them).

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but that doesn't sound like Fred Dineage, even on a good day.

Dancing Monkeys!

I owe you all an explanation about the onion.

It's a truth of blogging that whenever you put effort into something, your rewards are minimal. I could have easily sat there for half an hour last night writing 2000 words about how my day was ruined by Judy's incessant wittering on about her latest Andy McNab. However, I knew there had to be an easier way. You, see, I'm beginning to understand blogging. I'm catching on. Post a picture of an onion, I thought. There are sure to be people out there who like onions. And I was right.

I was inspired by this thread, over at Thought Experiments. 34 comments and counting! It's enough to make a writer weep into their Salvation Army issue blanket.

It’s why I’ve decided to take a zero-effort approach to blogging. From now on, I’ll just be linking to videos of monkeys dancing.



See, how easy that was? Now to curl up on my flattened cardboard box and finish the last of this soup...

An Onion

Not So Easy Money

24 hours have now passed and my letter to 'The Independent' has still not recieved a reply. This is just so typical of journalists, happy to abuse a chap's Twitter account but haven't the decency to slip him a few thousand in the post for the distress they've caused.

But on the topic of hard earned money, I have to admit that my return to blogging has caused some debate on the Madeley/Finnigan ranch. Judy believes it's a pointless waste of time that only has a detrimental effect on the purse. 'Stick a donate button on the side!' is all she can say whenever I raise the subject of expanding my Appreciation Society. I blame Elberry who has gone the donation route and is now lighting cigars with twenty pound notes tucked into the garter belts of his thousand pound a night Bulgarian love midgets.

I suppose we're not alone in finding times tough. Judy's taste for leather bound contemporary hardbacks has given way to her reading a well thumbed copy of an Andy McNab she picked up at the local bring and buy. So when I noticed 'The Independent' had been taking my copyrighted material from Twitter and posting it in full, I thought this was the chance to make a few quid. God knows, I've given 'The News of the World' enough chance to tap my phone (passcode 423632).

What I suppose saddens me the most is that I only seem to get grief despite the great efforts I put into pleasing people. Whatever the opposite of 'needy': that's me. I'm a 'giver'. Such as the photos I sent out just the other week. Two kind letters of thanks: one from the UK and another from Spain. But what about the rest? I didn't hear a thing. But that's people, I suppose. Once they get the 4x10 glossy snap of you posing in your swimming trunks, they just don't want to know you...

Old Goats and Grey Squirrels

The following email is now on its way to 'The Independent'. I will publish their reply/apology should I receive one. [UPDATE, 10th August, 2009: They did print part of the letter, here.]

3rd August 2009
Re.: Old Goats and Grey Squirrels

Sir,

I am writing in response to the piece ‘Silly Old Goats Grow Old, Disgracefully’, which appeared in the 2nd August (Sunday) edition of your newspaper and cited my Twitter account.

On the 9th May 2009, I placed the following ad online: ‘EMPLOYMENT REQUIRED. Sexy man, experienced sofa operator, Ali G beard. Licensed squirrel catcher. Will travel for work but not to Belgium.’ I hardly expected to see this serious attempt to raise my public profile reprinted in your newspaper and used as the basis of a dastardly assault on my character. The piece was sour, spiteful, and poorly punctuated. My wife was in tears after she read it and vowed never to vote Independent again.

In these days of mass unemployment and a rampant grey squirrel population, I would have thought that any attempt to find work proactively would have been applauded and not used to categorise a man as a ‘silly old goat’. I suppose you think I should simply fade into obscurity like Lenny Bennett, Bernie Clifton, or Suzanne Charlton. Well, I’ve been told by some of the nation’s top publicists that I could become the next Adrian Chiles or Russell Brand, but with the advantage of speaking Estuary English and requiring very little public nudity.

I also saw, with some concern, that you listed my name alongside that of Silvio Berlusconi, who I consider a prince among men given that he has provided employment for many of Italy’s most impoverished young women with money from his own pocket. Similarly, you mock Jack Nicholson, asking: ‘Can there be anyone who doesn't feel repulsed by the pictures of Nicholson holidaying with his paunch?’ But, with respect, what would you expect the poor man to do? Abandon his stomach in a box? Bury it in the garden? Leave it in the park reading a newspaper?

This insult comes at a time when I have noted, with growing frustration, that ‘The Independent’ is trying to cater to a younger audience through garish colours, shorter sentences, and constant mention of Lily Allen. All populations are ageing (though you newspaper types do like to repeat that ridiculous cliché about ‘the ageing population’) but there are increasing numbers of men, like me, in the early throes of middle age. We are your core readership and you would be wise to cater to our interests rather than mock us. You could make up for this personal insult if you began to address issues of an interest to me and my kind, such as: thermal socks, sheds, Barnes Wallis, rambling, onion diets, Harris tweed, rotavator reviews, and (please!), less coverage of Graham Norton who wouldn’t know how to trap a squirrel if he had one up his trouser leg (and I’m not sure that he doesn’t).

Yours, in a state of some discomfort,

Dick Madeley
North London


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The Richard Madeley Appreciation Society
http://www.richard-madeley.com
http://www.twitter.com/richardmadeley

An Open Letter to Dave Barry

I was browsing my regular haunts yesterday when I came across this post on the blog belonging to Dave Barry, the American wit and all-round sharp needle.

Although I rarely leave comments on his site (rather too many Americans to make me feel at home), I found the contents of the post so utterly irresponsible that I fired off an immediate reply, which I am now following up by extending it to a letter, expressing my disappointment on behalf of all my fellow Dicks.

Dear Dave Barry,

As a proud Dick, I would like to express my disgust and outrage at the cheap joke made at the expense of Mr. Dick Pole, the pitching coach of the Chicago Reds. Although I’m English and don’t understand a thing about ‘pitching’ (it means something else here in North London and I could never see the need to coach teach what comes so naturally to young boys of a certain age), I’m certain that Dick Pole is good at his job and doesn’t deserve such ridicule. I am also sure that his friends and family would stand firmly beside Mr. Pole to show the world a united front against such cheap Dick shots.

How would you feel if we mocked your name? Here in London, it’s the highest insult to call somebody a ‘Dav’, but would I call you ‘Dav Barry’? No, of course I wouldn’t! It would only cause undue hurt to an American. Yet I wish people were equally sensitive to Dicks. People laugh at Dicks all the time and I can cite the example of Mr. Dick Spring, the former Irish politician, who had to suffer years of sniggering at his name. I also fondly remember Dr. Dick Shaft, a director of British Petroleum, and my good friend, Mr. Dick Drop, head of regional programming at BBC Radio Carlisle.

Are we really living in such unenlightened times that men called ‘Richard’ can’t have a familiar abbreviation? All Dicks face an unenviable choice. Do we bear the stigma of the shortened form of our name or do we append an ‘ie’ to become a ‘Dickie’? Though I respect Dickie Davies, Dickie Bird, and Dickie Attenborough, I’ve always believed that ‘Dickie’ is the coward’s way out. It’s fine if you want to be patronised as some doddering national treasure but I want to be taken seriously as a modern vigorous Dick.

So, in speaking out on behalf of all Dicks who have been mocked because of our name, I would ask you to think again should you feel tempted to smirk at the next Dick you spot. To be honest, I didn’t expect it of your normally excellent blog as I would have expected somebody in such a high profile position to stand up against the rampant scoffing of Dicks.

Yours,

Dick Madeley (Uncle)

Uncle Dick's Guide To Love, Relationships, and Power Tools

A reader writes:

Dear Uncle Dick,

I'm kind of tired of relying on the Tarot, so can you sort out my love life for me please?!

Yours, in anticipation...

A x

Dear Ax,

I would be delighted to advise you in regard to your love life, especially since I too fell afoul of the Tarot at an early age. I remember when I was about 19 years old. I was doing work as an Eagle Scout around Judith Chalmers’ house when she got out her old deck of the mystical T. Being young and impressionable, I didn’t think twice about turning over three cards. Only I picked out the Hierophant, Temperance and Moon cards and, two weeks later, found myself dating a pasty faced astronomer with Catholic leanings who claimed my Vimto moustache was the work of the devil. I learned a valuable lesson, not just about love but about Judith Chalmers’ magical power: neither is to be trifled with.

My advice to you in regard to matters of love is to ignore physical qualities and look for somebody who can connect with you on an intellectual level. I need only refer to the current problems of Pete and Jordan to remind you of what happens when two unequal intellects collide. A man who can pen ‘Mysterious Girl’ was never going to find happiness with a woman whose greatest achievement in life is retaining both of her nipples.

Forgive me for being old fashioned about these things but I will assume you are after a male. In which case, I suggest you avoid making the usual mistakes that women make when looking for a man. Perfume and lacy things might work on TV but, in the real world, you should accept that men are motivated by more down to earth matters such as beer. Have you tried rubbing malted hops behind your ears? It’s sure to attract any man who likes to drink. However, to ensure he’s not an alcoholic, you should also carry with you a breathalyser. Proper urine/blood tests can be conducted at a later date. In the early stages of dating, you’re only looking for a ballpark figure for blood alcohol content.

Take this example further and think of the things that interest men. You can never go wrong with power tools. If you could carry a high-spec drill with you at all times (Bosch are particularly appealing to men), you will immediately find something to talk about. If it’s got a ‘hammer’ setting, then all the better. Personally speaking, I always enjoy it when Judy dresses in overalls and we work on the car together. There’s nothing sexier than a woman lying on her back, her feet sticking out from under a 1966 Ford Anglia she happens to be restoring.

If you can lure a man in with these tips, you must then turn your mind to keeping him. There are always other women liable to come along with more attractive power tools or a classic 1960 VW Mango Bus with original interior. However, men are generally loyal so long as they don’t feel threatened. Men appreciate silence, especially while reading the newspaper in the bathroom on a Sunday morning. However, they also enjoy loud noises at least three times a week. Arrange regular detonations in the back garden and they will thank you in ways it would be indiscreet to mention on a website rated ‘F’ for Family Friendly.

I hope this advice helps and trust that you won’t lose fingers due to my recommendations. Take proper advice when handling explosives and remember to unplug your power tools before changing drills/blades.

Kindest regards,

Uncle Dick

Your August Calendar

Simply click the image for the full size image which you can then print out and stick on your bedroom wall.

A Response to the Scurrilous Newspaper Reports Regarding 'Strictly Come Dancing'

01/09/09:12.02PM. Press Release on behalf of Uncle Dick:

"I’m asking people to stop sending me abusive emails about ‘Strictly Come Dancing’. The news that I have ‘snubbed’ the show is overstated, as is my reported wage demand. I asked for a paltry half a million and not a penny more.

On the whole, discussions were friendly and I always felt it certain that the BBC would eventually allow me to wear my spats with a sequined cummerbund. In the end, negotiations broke down when could not agree to my reasonable demand that a duck should be waiting for me in my dressing room at the start of each show. Nor would they allow me to partner Melinda Messenger in the naked Bolivian Tango. Suggestions that I wanted a rigged phone vote are as scurrilous and unfounded as the suggestions in some print media that negotiations ended when I made a joke about a toupee. I didn’t say toupee but tepee, Polish not polish, and Dusty Lee not Brucie.

Finally, I would like to make it clear that this does not close the door on my future participation in the show. I wish them well in the coming series, even though I’ll be watching Bill Oddie’s new ‘Owl Odyssey’ on BBC2."

Uncle Dick Madeley,
North London

Taboo Sucks, To You...

I see that Chip Dale is back and has blogged for two days straight! Why did nobody tell me? And how long will those pineapple-scented thighs keep up in the current blogging climate?

Things have changed since he last graced us with his innocent optimism and questionable quips. Of course, it would be churlish to remind people of the poorly written posts that characterised much of his blog output, so, instead, I simply welcome him back like a long-lost relative from the side of the family that nobody cares to talk about because they live on Merseyside and drive taxi cabs for a living.

Despite my initial wariness of Chip – I’m still not convinced that it’s healthy to be so obsessed with thongs – I have been slowly developing a soft spot for the man who has overcome so many obvious physical difficulties to succeed in the emotionally demanding world of male stripping. Admittedly, I have a similar attitude towards Gordon Brown and politics, though there’s also a nail gun fetish somewhere in that mix. Chip, however, just brings out the best in me and I’m glad to have him around so long as we’re separated by a few hundred miles.

It’s one of the drawbacks of being famous that people often stop me in the street and demand to know what I think about stripping as a career. ‘I lack the flexibility,’ I reply, though in truth, I encourage all men to take off their clothes for money unless they suffer some obvious physical defect such as good looks or a perfect body. It’s why I could never make a career as ‘Big Dick Madeley’. The Great Sculptor damned me by using clay free of blemishes. There’s not a wart on my body; just shapely legs, firm buttocks, and a thin waste angling nicely into armpits to die for. And as Chip proves, to be a male stripper, you have to put all your obvious flaws on show. It’s what makes for a rowdy evening and Judy return home at four thirty in the morning threatening me with a thong slingshot.

The world of female strippers is, of course, something quite different. It’s all about darkened booths heavy with a sordid musk and fetid bodily odours reminiscent of Clapham Common on New Year’s Eve. By contrast, is there anything funnier than seeing a man strip for a living? I remember thinking it strange when there was an outcry about the stripping postmen on our final Channel 4 show. People complained that it was wrong if me to enjoy Judy’s obvious embarrassment and that she could laugh at another person’s anatomy.

In these days of ‘right thinking’, we’re not meant to express an opinion about (or find humour in) anything out of the ordinary – though as the great S.J. Perelman once said, ‘humour, in its simplest form, is the unexpected [...] the sudden disruption of thought, the conjoining of unlikely elements’. It’s why we can laugh at a funeral, in the middle of a battle, or during Bruce Forsyth’s act. Stripping provides instantaneous access (or exposure) to the unexpected and though Chip would probably disagree: his success probably has more to do with embarrassed laughter than it has anything to do with his sex appeal.

After all, some of the oldest jokes in our culture are directed to people with large noses or enormous bottoms. What is the Venus of Willendorf if it isn’t a series of Benny Hill reduced to fit your hand? Unlike our primitive ancestors, we’ve simply moved on to laugh at oddly placed tattoos and tricks involving novelty sailor hats.

I suppose all forms of stripping appeal to the prurient part of our nature, where the infantile taboos lurk. Yet men like Chip seems particularly good at demonstrating that taboo and humour are reverse sides of the same screwed-up coin. Just ask the greatest stand-up of all time, Sigmund Freud, who often shocked audiences with his jokes about Dora, a plate of spinach and the baboon called Ferdinand. Comedy trails after taboo and skirts around the acceptable.

Political correctness may currently define what is acceptable but its strictures will never abide. I have lost track of the number of times I’ve been told off for using the word ‘midget’ recently but my mind naturally reaches for it when looking for a shorthand way of expressing the unexpected. Midget. Earlobe. Lubricated. Onion. Stripper. Owl. I know that three of these words might offend people below four feet but I have never heard either Ant or Dec complain. And is there anything funnier than a midget stripper? A lubricated onion? A heavily earlobed Owl? Unless, of course, you’re the producers at Channel 4 who wouldn’t allow the talent to book the acts for the final show of a successful series.

So, welcome back Chip. It’s just a shame you’re so tall and not an owl.

My 50 Cents On Plinths

There are some constants in the world, such as knowing that knee surgery involving a lumber saw is preferable to any film with 50 Cent in a supporting role. Another constant is that all roads lead to this undisclosed borough of North London where those in power eventually come, seeking advice about capital punishment, road safety, public decency, air combat, and the moral conduct of Welsh hill farmers.
Last night, I was sat watching ‘Righteous Kill’, the latest Pacino/De Niro hamfest, with Judy beside me on the sofa doing her Scarface impressions, as she tends to do when watching her favourite actor chew dialogue like a Chihuahua savaging a postman’s all-weather heel. I’ve heard the lines a thousand times before and soon found my mind wandering. It wasn’t long before my slippers did the same, leading me to my den where I found an email waiting to distract me from Judy telling De Niro to ‘say hello to my little friend!’.

The message read:

Dear Richard,

Just read with interest your latest in the Daily Express. I’m currently canvassing opinion about the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square and wondered if you would care to contribute to the consultation process?

Yours, affectionately,

Boris

Normally I don’t acknowledge emails from people who read the ‘World’s Greatest Newspaper’ (I’m contractually obliged to call it that). I don’t want fans to read this blog expecting the same level of highbrow analysis, polished prose, and cutting rhetoric as they find over there in the Richard&Judy column, which is actually written by a friend of the family with a sociology degree and time on her hands.

However, I digress...

For Boris , I was happy to make an exception and to write a reply. Since he’s become London’s Mayor, he’s done a fantastic job. I haven’t met a single newt on London’s buses, nor have I been forced to apologise for my great great great grandfather once buying a pot of Robinson’s marmalade and being slightly amused by the label.

And if Boris wanted to sort out the problem of the Fourth Plinth then I was only too happy to lend a hand. It’s a project that clearly needs a new direction and who better to give it that direction than a man who’s not going to skim a few hundred thousand off the National Lottery for coming up with some dumb idea. You get my dumb ideas for nothing and at no cost to you Lotto addicts.

The way I see it: sculpture is in crisis. Chosen by committee and pandering to the excesses of the current liberal hegemony, public art makes no real statement about anything at all. I want to reinvigorate Trafalgar Square with a statue that will say something definite about Britain. I have therefore made a shortlist of subjects for your consideration. I’m pretty confident that you will see that any one of them would warrant a permanent place on the plinth.

Mr. Bronson

I was wasting valuable minutes on Twitter the other night when I received a message from Grange Hill’s Roland. He’s now called Erkan Mustafa but was once the boy who made it fashionable to eat crisps whilst wearing ill fitting blazers during the 1980s. The message brought many happy memories back to me of Trisha Yates, Mrs. McClusky, Zammo and his smack habit. But it occurred to me that there would be no finer candidate for the Fourth Plinth than Mr. Bronson. He had what the nation now lacks: the steely eye looking down on us and ready to crack us behind the ear with a history of the Punic Wars whenever we’re not paying attention in class. Mr. Bronson was the teacher we all feared yet the man who could have saved the country from steering from the straight and narrow. If only we’d appreciated him when he was around, he might not have gone off to found the Third Reich and watch as Indiana Jones skirted around a book burning to reclaim the Grail Diary from Doctor Elsa Schneider.

Sir Jimmy Savile

We’ve had disabilities represented in public art and we’ve had heroes. So isn’t it about time for the nation’s slightly strange bachelors who leave you with an uneasy feeling? Visit any town centre on a Tuesday morning and you’ll see them emerging from the greengrocers with a selection of strangely shaped vegetables in their Lakeland eco-friendly carrier bags. What better way is there of using the plinth than with a statue of Jimmy Savile waving a courgette?

Victoria Pendleton

In my mind, nothing demands a wasteful use of the public’s purse than a statue of an attractive woman wearing Lycra and riding a bicycle.

Roger de Coursey

People remember Nookie Bear but what about the man behind the voice? Is there a single statue in the country that represents our proud tradition of ventriloquists? And what’s novel about this idea is that the statue would have technology allowing it to throw its voice. Imagine Nelson making crude remarks about his column and I think you see the genius behind the idea.

Uncle Dick

I submit my own name, not out of any great belief in my genius (I’m far to humble to mention it more than twice in an essay) but because I believe my genius can make a difference. I would represent the 19 million people in this country who choose not to wear underwear. In addition, my genius speaks to the young and disenfranchised. To young gangstas, I am ’50 Pence’, the rebel who wear denims in semi-formal settings or a casual scarf worn indoors at the height of summer.

Judy Finnigan

Who would represent the approximately 7 million people in this country married to people who choose not to wear underwear. A fine bronze of Judy playing her trombone would be the perfect roost for pigeons.

Jamie Oliver

Unlike the previous proposals, I’m not suggesting we recreate Jamie in bronze. I actually want the real Jamie Oliver up on the plinth, preferably via some ladder or skylift which can be retracted once he’s in place. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I’m taken with the idea. Let’s go with this one and damn the expense. It will be like a David Blaine stunt only without any chance of him whimping out after forty days without food and water. If Damien Hurst had come up with this idea but using the head of a sheep, you’d call him a genius. I expect nothing less.

On Poetry and Vacuum Pumps

I woke up bright and bushy this morning, played a game of wardrobe lottery and emerged a winner in a pair of brown corduroy slacks, a shirt with Gladstone collar and generous tie, all topped off with my favourite black beret. A quick look in the mirror and two snaps of my fingers later, I sloped off down the stairs, turned right at the weights room, went down the corridor past the swimming pool, arboretum, and tanning salon, and made a sharp left into the kitchen.

‘Morning Jude,’ I said to Mrs. M as I slid to a halt in front of the fridge.

Judy was sitting at the Formica work surface, her old vacuum cleaner dismantled before her and a vacuum pump held to her lips. When she replied, she made a sound not unlike a Clanger addicted to morphine.

‘I know what you’re saying,’ I said as I cracked open the Zanussi, ‘but Fate has ordained that I’m wearing a beret today.’

She gave another toot at the pump’s inlet valve.

‘You could say that but let’s see what the day has in store.’

Toot, toot!

‘Nonsense!’ I replied. ‘It’s not certain that Jeremy Kyle would ever say that, even if he did breed budgerigars...’

No matter how much you try to keep the small talk going with a person speaking through a dismantled dust manifold, there is only so much of it you can take. This is especially true of a woman whose lungs have been hardened by years of trombone practice. Some of the sounds Judy made were like a duck armed with a megaphone. It wasn’t long before I realised that eating breakfast in the kitchen was not for me or my beret.

Seeking a little P and Q in the garden, I took my toast, orange juice, and my copy of ‘The Guardian’ to the shade of Judy’s new trampoline. There, to the distant sounds of nozzle flushing, I ate my breakfast, read the paper, and tried to discover what the day had in store.

It didn’t take long to figure out why Providence had ordained that I should be wearing my beret on a Saturday. Once I was done with the Swine Flu update and cheering Jeremy Clarkson’s attack on Gordon Brown, I paged through to the arts section and discover a selection of poems about Iraq commissioned by Carol Ann Duffy. But don’t you worry, kind reader! I’ll mercifully quote only one stanza from ‘Big Ask’, the only poem in the selection written by our new poet laureate:

Guantanamo Bay - how many detained?
How many grains in a sack?
Extraordinary Rendition - give me some names.
How many cards in a pack?
Sexing the Dossier - name of the game?
Poker. Gin Rummy. Blackjack.

Now, as you know, I’m something of a poet myself; or should I say, I’ve been writing under the pseudonym, Gus Scrottee, for some months now. And by the time I’d finished reading Duffy’s latest, I’d stuffed my beret in my mouth to stifle the cries of anguish that would have otherwise ruined the quiet of the morning in our undisclosed part of North London.

I don’t mean to be pedantic or to criticise somebody trying their best but what sort of question is ‘how many grains in a sack’? Would that be grains of corn or grains of rice? And how big is the sack? Bigger than a gentleman’s sack, a swag bag sack, a sack of coal, the sack of Rome in 1527? Even when she has a chance to be clear about a detail, she waddles off, her pockets full of abstraction.

‘How many cards in a pack’? asks Carol Ann. Well, there are normally 52 but are we going to count the jokers? Or are we talking about Tarot cards (there are 78) or a deck of Italian cards which contain 40?

I’m often asked why the old book club hasn’t included any of Ms. Duffy’s work and this is the reason why. You won’t find this vague speculation in David Mitchell’s ‘Cloud Atlas’, even when he’s talking about clouds at a very high altitude. And you certainly don’t find this kind of confused thinking in Kate Mosse’s ‘Labyrinth’, even if it was about David Bowie leading a Fraggle Army.

The rest of the commissioned poems were little better and made me realise how far poets are from ordinary, down-to-earth people such as ourselves and Judy. But why should poetry be something for the privileged classes? Why must it be highbrow and elitist? And why shouldn’t poetry be written by a handsome TV presenter wearing a black beret while sitting beside a trampoline as his wife plays tunes on the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner?

No sooner had I reached this conclusion than I moistened the nib of my pen and sat down to scribble my own poem inspired by recent events. It is my gift to you, this fine Saturday morning, and my gift to the world.

Uncle Dick Madeley’s Meditation On Responses To Tragic Events Across The Globe But More Specifically In Iraq By Contemporary Poets; Inspired by Carol Ann Duffy’s Poem ‘Big Ask’ And Written After Eating A Slice Of Toast Whilst Sitting In The Shade of Judy’s Trampoline

I remember
thinking I should write
a poem about Iraq when
my wife told Englebert
Humperdink that she believed
he had the best horn section
in popular jazz. He
thanked her and I thought
I glimpsed mortality
in the damp spall cast from
his eye; the vague sense
that having the best horn
section in popular jazz
was to be his legacy,
like George W.’s legacy
was not a popular horn
section but the war in Iraq.

Oh Iraq! You have seen
the best and worst of us,
requiring the occasional
random italicising
as if to say this is
more meaningful
than any of the other
evils that the world
has to offer, such as
swine flu, recession,
the new series of
Top Gear on BBC2,
Peter Andre’s next
album or Real Madrid’s
transfer policy in the
summer of 2009.
Such terrors demand that
I randomly insert some
glib violence of mine:
the blood smearing my
hands from when I
butchered an onion.

Although the cut was little
compared to the blood in
Iraq, it was making my
italicised lunch that day
that first convinced
me that I understood
your suffering. From the
heart of NW3, I now see that
no war is exotic and all
wars taste of crimson cheese
and the bloody onion.

Oh! The brutality of America
that I like to attack because
they are not like we English
but powerful and full of evil,
except for ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’,
‘24’, and ‘Prison Break’.
However, quality TV comedy
and drama does not atone for
the B-52s (the aircraft not the
New Wave rock band) and
the evils done by your
helpfully rhyming hand.

And so Judy, the vacuum
bugle blows and
my poem ends
with some trite sense
of resolution, perhaps
the
odd
line
strangely
written as though I’ve
left my elbow on the
keyboard, which conveys
the sense that I have
suffered because I know
how to strangely enjamb
a line, which is rather like
saying ‘we’ll see you after
the break’ or ‘in next
week’s show...’ before
eventually our season
ends and silently to writing
Daily Express columns we go.

Meet Gus Scrottee

Me in disguise as Gus Scrottee, failed writer, singer, loin tamer, pickle magnate, sawdust tycoon, and backyard ventriloquist.

The Chronicles of Gus Scrottee

When I told Judy that I’d finished a script for another of my radio comedies, she shrugged her shoulders and carried on plucking her turkey. But before you think she has some plucking fetish, I should add that this was back in December when the feathers were already lying crisp and deep and even.

‘You’re not impressed?’ I asked, standing at the back door and watching my wife’s fingers work deftly around the gizzard.

‘Oh, I suppose I am,’ she said, snorting few feathers towards me. ‘Who are you sending it to? Ken or Mary? Or perhaps Lucy? She owes us a few favours.’

My hand tightened against the door jamb, as my fingers have a want to do when frustrated and in the region of door jambs. ‘Are you suggesting that they’d only produce my work because of my name?’ I asked.

‘Well I think that’s the only way you’ll get one of your scripts broadcast,’ she admitted.

‘That sounds remarkably like a dare,’ I replied.

‘If you want to see it like that,’ she said, grabbing her cleanly plucked bird by its crop and swinging it casually over her shoulder.

That was over six months ago; six long and frustrating months since I pledged to re-launch my career as a writer and broadcaster the hard way. Any man can ring up his friends and ask them to give him work based on years of favours owed. But I’m not any man. I am Gus Scrottee and, today, Gus finished his second project.

In order to work undercover as an unknown writer, I was forced to adopt this pseudonym which, by now, is familiar in production offices across the land. I’ve been writing my own material and submitting it, just like anybody else without a production credit to their name. The first of Gus’ full length scripts went to the BBC, via their Writersroom, where it has languished for nearly four months. We expect their rejection any day, given that only 2% of work submitted catches their eye. The second of Gus Scrottee’s big projects was finished this week, but, instead of sending it to the BBC, he thought he’d try independent radio production companies.

Turns out, finding an independent radio production company willing to read a script is as easy as sucking marbles through a chair leg.

As soon as I knew the script was done, I dragged my copy of the ‘Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook’ from the shelf, thumbed through the section for Independent Radio Producers and began my research. The list of production companies is pretty abbreviated:

Above the Title Productions
All Out Productions
Angel Eye Media Ltd.
Athena Media
Baby Cow Productions Ltd
Big Heart Media
Bona Broadcasting
Campbell Davison Media
Classic Arts Productions Ltd
Crosshands Ltd/ACP Television
CSA Word
Electric Airwaves
Ruth Evans Productions
Festival Productions Ltd
Fiction Factory
First Writes Theatre Co. Ltd.
Flannel
Heavy Entertainment Ltd
Loftus Productions Ltd
Made in Manchester
Jane Marshall Productions
Neon
Pier Productions
Promenade Enterprises
Random Entertainment
SH Radio
Smooth Operations
Square Dog Radio LLP
Lou Stein Associates Ltd
Sweet Talk Productions Ltd
Testbed
Tintinna Ltd
Torpedo Ltd
UBC Media Group plc
Whistledown Productions Ltd
Wise Buddah Radio

That’s only thirty six independent production companies in the UK making programmes for the radio. Yet this far-from-impressive list is made to look even more humble once I remove all the companies that don’t make radio comedies, which happens to be Gus Scrottee’s speciality.

Above the Title Productions
Angel Eye Media Ltd.
Baby Cow Productions Ltd
Bona Broadcasting
Flannel
Random Entertainment
Sweet Talk Productions Ltd
UBC Media Group plc

Not too bad? You might think so, except many of these won’t accept unsolicited scripts, or only accept scripts submitted via an agent.

Thankfully, I am Uncle Dick Madeley, world famous author, presenter, and trapeze artiste, who can’t cross a London road without having agents slicing him with laminated business cards. However, for the purposes of this exercise, Gus Scrottee is unrepresented. So, the possible market for Gus’ script comes down to:

Random Entertainment
Sweet Talk Productions Ltd

Except that ‘Random Entertainment’ (the highly prestigious, award-winning company formed by Graeme Garden and Jon Naismith) has only a limited web presence and ‘Sweet Talk Productions Ltd’ has none. In other words: it’s likely that neither company are actively seeking scripts and highly probable that they’ve simply forgotten to mention that they don’t accept unsolicited submissions. Which leaves a hole where there was once a list of thirty six...

The answer to this problem is, of course, to get an agent. And here, unknown writers like Gus Scrotee, have the ‘Writers and Artists’ Yearbook’ to advise them. It helpfully suggests that: ‘the best way to get an agent is to first get an offer of a deal on a project’. What the ‘Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook’ fails to explain is how to help the dog catch its own tail: how to get a project so you can land an agent to help you get a project...

But what we can say is that ‘The Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook’ costs £14.99 and at 832 pages, contains more publishers, agents, production companies, newspapers, and broadcasters than you could shake your fists at.

Which is all you can do once you realise that you’re as stuffed as Judy’s turkey last Christmas.

Season’s greetings!

The Devil Drives An Easy Bargain

Review: ‘Old Harry’s Game’ (Radio 4)

Although I am something of a fan of the BBC’s radio output, I listen to very little radio. As an audience, I fall between many stools. Radio 1 is as attractive as an intestinal heaving in a Dorset caravan park. Its frenzy of adolescent banality, gastric pops, whistles and groans, makes it unlistenable to anybody who isn’t an office worker, dentist, or Polish decorator. In contrast, Radio 2 lacks edge and, except when I'm on it, steers a path down the middle of the road that I, as a hardened veteran of grunge, rock, and banjo solos, simply finds unacceptable. Radio 3, meanwhile, is obsessed with whatever it does, without any consideration for the outside world. It’s radio equivalent of Dustin Hoffman in ‘Rainman’. For that reason, I often find myself warming to it until I realise that don’t really enjoy classical music, jazz, or Harrison Birtwistle’s latest dustbin lid medley. By contrast, Radio 4 has everything I could want in a radio station, let down by many of things I dislike about the BBC. You know the score. Middle-class, middle-ages dramas that the announcer summarises: ‘Daphne is approaching her fiftieth birthday but nursing her aging mother struck down with Alzheimer’s, when Phillip, her new next door neighbour, invites her around to play chess, opening up a new world of temptation, passion and lightly oiled green salads.’

Then there’s Radio 5 Live, which I only tend to listen to when my testosterone levels are particularly high. Radio 6 I would have more time for if its eclectic mix of alternative music styles didn’t mean that I have to endure jazz, funk, and hip-hop, in order to hear indie, punk, or classic rock. Since Judy is a big fan of funk, I tend to avoid tuning in to Radio 6 in case I set her off. There’s nothing more distracting than driving a car when your passenger is shouting ‘Can I hear you count me off? A one, two three, four... Ha!’

As for BBC Radio 7, it no longer exists to me. After ‘Richard&Judy’ finished on Watch, I thought I’d spend some time working on new projects. To ‘get my eye in’, so to speak, I sent work to their open-call for writers. I sent countless of my top-drawer jokes, one-liners and sketches to ‘NewsJack’, the ‘topical sketch show’. It would have been profitable had I dug a hole in the garden, dumped all my work into it, and then planted a rose bush on top. They didn’t so much as reject my work as ignore it completely.

Given that I listen to very little live radio, I exist about five years behind the popular tastes. I discover my favourite shows somewhat late into their life cycle. My newest discovery is ‘Old Harry’s Game’, which recently ended its seventh season on Radio 4. It’s rare that I find something in life that gives me this amount of pleasure. For the past two months, Andy Hamilton’s voice has been rattling around my head on every train journey I’ve made. I have walked the great cities of this nation with a large inane grin on my face, chuckling in queues, laughing out loud at the most outrageously inopportune moments.

The plot has an arc so simple that it lays claim to genius. Andy Hamilton plays Satan, ruler of the vast underworld populated by the great and the not-so-good. Each episode takes some aspect of our humanity and exposes it to Satan’s ridicule, with Humanity’s position defended by the Professor, an upright man of liberal convictions, kept out of his rightful place in heaven by his atheism. Then there’s Thomas Quentin Crimp, played superbly by Jimmy Mulville. He’s the deceased chairman of a privatised water company and holds the distinction of being the most amoral human in the history of the world.

From this simple premise, the show explores what it is to be human, drawing on many great jokes about Jeffry Archer, Robert Maxwell (currently residing in hell), Rupert Murdock, Jane Austen (also in hell, along with her brass knuckles). Except for the odd barb aimed towards myself and Judy, ‘Old Harry’s Game’ is the most perfectly written radio comedy I’ve had the pleasure of listening to in all of my forty two years above ground. I can’t praise it more highly. If I were to have another child, it would demand that it be called Andy Peter Spike Armando Milligan Hamilton Sellers Iannucci Madeley. That’s how highly I rate the show and I think you will do that same.

Verdict: 5 out of 5 Uncle Dick Grins.

The Clichéd Tattoo

Out buying a book of First Class, this morning, I found myself standing in the queue at my local supermarket and wondering what possesses a young man to have a large two inch ebony disk inserted into his earlobe.

He was standing in front of me in a line of customers that stretched from the one open till, around the display of discounted Jaffa cakes, and into the babycare aisle. I had at least five minutes to inspect the lad who, in addition to the ebony disc, had been riveted through the neck with a stainless-steel stud. His eyebrow was pieced by a similar lump of metalwork, his lower lip dragged south by half a dozen rings. Then there were the tattoos covering his arms in Celtic patterns that disappeared under his shirt and emerged at his neck where they ran up to his ear. There, the Northern European aesthetic met the South American influence of his tribal disc before the whole thing was rounded off with some braiding in his hair that made him resemble a Viking. It was only when I made an admiring comment about his earhoop – ‘that’s quite the thing you’ve got in your ear’ – did he start to tell me about the various piercings hidden from view. The highlight of the tour was his tongue (also studded), which he’d had surgically split so as to form a V. The effect made him look viperfish, should vipers ever visit the Co-op to buy Superbike Monthly. By the time he’d finished, I felt quite old and out of touch, standing there with my book of stamps, packet of kitchen rolls and a bottle of antibacterial handwash.

Only later did my mind turn to how mundane rebellion has become among the youth. If my young friend truly wants to look unique, he needs more imagination. Tattoos are ubiquitous these days; stapling, studding, and piercing sights common to the average high street. it comes to looking different, modern youth all look the same. If Dick Madeley were ever to customise his body, he’d be far more ambitious.

When it comes to transforming my body, I’d make use of the latest OLED technology. Placed beneath my skin, I’d turn my body into a living display. This would allow me the flexibility to respond to my surroundings like a chameleon, only I’d be showing a range of light entertainment programming. The space across my forehead I would use as a basic TV guide; the red button over my right eyebrow indicating my interactive service. The only other changed to my body I would accept would be to my earlobes, one which would serve as a beverage holder and the other as a place to hang the remote control. Naturally, such alterations would require a minimum of clothing. The traditional Indian, Khādī, would do the trick, the loose robes easily thrown aside when the need arises. In urban surroundings, I might use by body to display public art. In the countryside, I’d project documentaries about wildlife, becoming, as it were, a walking handbook of English flora and fauna. At night, I might project soothing displays, and in the morning, the latest headlines complete with news ticker around my neck.

The beauty of my plan: the whole thing would be paid for advertising and even should anybody copy me, I’d still be as unique as a channel on satellite, with my own branding and channel ident. Yes, if (I almost feel like saying ‘when’) it comes time to customise this old body of mine, I’m not going for tattoos and outdated techniques straight from the Amazonian jungle. Give me cutting edge Japanese technology and a broadcasting deal with UK Gold.

Transfer Season Speculation

Judy is to seal her move to Manchester City within the next couple of hours. I’ve been on the phone all morning with Mark Hughes, ironing out the details of what must be the most surprising transfer of the summer window. Crease yourself a wry one if you want but I’m told that Judy is integral to City's plans. Although I don’t rate her particularly highly when pushed any further up the field that central defence, I do accept that she’s deadly in the six yard box and, in these days of crazy money in football, it comes as no surprise that Judy will be working along the City forward line. Teams will shake when they see the attacking formation of Santa Cruz, Bellamy, Tevez, Adebayor, Robinho, Finnigan.

I will be putting the £72 million transfer feel into good effect. A cheaper replacement will come in to work beside me and I’ll be taking the Andy Roddick approach by new picking a partner out of a swimwear catalogue (see right, for the leading candidate in the lightweight division). I will also be spending a few million to buy out some of my favourite blogs and providing editorial input into what I want to see (more guinea pig posts, Bryan; not so many butterflies, Nige). Of course, a good portion of the money will go into taking back my toxic waste which the Brazilians now tell me they don’t want. I wish they’d make up their minds. I now face the problem of disposing of every soufflé and creamed desert we made on ‘This Morning’. There’s 1,400 tonnes of the stuff, which is far too toxic for landfill and too fluffy and light to dump at sea. I intend to spread the rest of the money among charitable causes. I’ll be supporting the arts, through sponsorship of poetry (here, here, and here), as well as giving money to Andy Hamilton so he can do nothing all year but produce more series of the devilish funny ‘Old Harry’s Game’, the final episode of which I have planned for my afternoon.