In My Dreams I Visit Sunderland

Every night recently, I’ve had extremely vivid dreams. Some have been nightmarish. I can sometimes wake in the middle of the night rigid with the fear that some shape in the folds of the curtains looks vaguely human. A few have been comic and I wake laughing manically at some joke I’ve already forgotten. Some have been neither, just crazy jumbles of meaning that hide something deeper.

Very little of last night’s adventure made it through to morning. I do remember that it involved a day out to Sunderland in the company of Judy, Jeremy Clarkson and, for reasons that will become apparent, New York poet and songwriter, Suzanne Vega. At some stage of the proceedings, Jeremy found himself wearing a bronzed bikini which precluded him from returning home by train. Instead, he used his vast wealth to charter a luxury yacht and we all sailed home with Jeremy clinging to the mast a la Simon Le Bon from some Duran Duran video of the early eighties.

As I say, much of the dream is lost to me but there was a very clear moment when I was sitting in a art gallery’s cafe talking to Suzanne Vega about the novels of Thomas Pynchon.

‘I have tried to read them but I grow quickly bored of their prolonged insanity,’ I was saying.

Suzanne looked at me, her eyes twitching in that way she has when excited. ‘But he’s a master of prose and his surreal take on the world should appeal to you Richard. Isn’t that what you’re trying to do with your books?’

‘I don’t know if it’s surreal or just lacking a strong through story,’ I replied. ‘And I don’t know if I want to be considered as hysterical realist. What’s wrong with a good old fashioned plot?’

I fear that this is the point at which I disappointed Suzanne. She was immediately whisked off by some long haired bohemian type who could talk the talk about Pynchon and play the bass guitar. I paid for the coffees, looked up, and found myself emerging from Manchester’s art gallery and turning left towards the office.

Waking up this morning, I could see how the dream arose from my waning literary hopes and concerns for my future. When Suzanne Vega first burst onto the music scene, she was the woman whose love I wanted to win through my wit and artistry. I fell in love with her distinctive looks, but even more so, her dry humour, her introversion, her sublime lyrics, and that voice like a cold wind whipping down the aisles of New York. She was everything I wanted to find in a woman, everything I wanted from life; intelligence, poetry, an ability to fingerpick the acoustic guitar, a left-of-centre brilliance, everything that was out of the ordinary yet so very right for me. That she should appear at this moment in a dream is no coincidence. It was my heart telling me something.

That Jeremy should be there too is no surprise. I think the dream was my subconscious reminding me that wit skirts around success, fame, intelligence, passion, oddity, and art. Your kind comments have helped me recently when I’ve been feeling low and tired. Elberry sent me an email that cheered me immensely and Selena wrote a piece to which I’m too humble to respond except to say that she’s right in every significant detail. As for me: I’m going to look again at my novel that left me feeling so underwhelmed yesterday. I’m going to rededicate myself to it and it to Suzanne Vega and Jeremy Clarkson. I can see now that few things make sense and it’s better to embrace the unusual. I should thrive on it and make it my own.

The only thing that still worries me is Sunderland. Why Sunderland? I’ve never been there in my life and I can’t say I’m keen on starting now. Call me old fashioned but I really don’t want to visit a city that sells bikinis in Jeremy Clarkson’s size. Or perhaps that’s it. Sunderland was really Manchester, where I’ll be tomorrow and Thursday, where they do sells bikinis in Jeremy Clarkson’s size.

The Appleyard Interview

‘Well,’ I said to Judy, ‘this is it. The Big Day. After all these years on terrestrial TV, it’s taken me until the last week of the show before I get to invite a real guest to share our sofa.’

She looked at me, her nostrils flaring half an inch above a piece of toast. There was a momentary look of confusion as she bit down and then began to chew but when it came to wiping a crumb from the side of her mouth, she was back to normal and the crumb was dispatched with a flick of her cruel finger.

‘You’re not going to go on about this all morning, are you Richard?’ she asked. ‘The man is flesh and blood, just like you or me or even Bill Oddie...’

‘Yes, but this is not just ordinary flesh and blood,’ I replied, ‘and certainly not as much flesh as there was only a few months ago.’

‘Which is why we’ve asked him on the show,’ said Judy. ‘I just hope you’re not going to spoil things.’

‘Spoil things? I’m finally getting a kindred spirit onto the sofa, a man cut from the same cloth.’

‘And he’s going to be discussing his stone age diet,’ said Judy. This was clearly meant as a warning.

‘Well, we’ll see,’ I said and left it at that.

The truth is that this will be the first blogger we’ve had on the show whose blog I read daily. Bryan Appleyard might think he’s coming on to talk about weight loss but I have other plans. This will be a far ranging exploration of the man’s mind and if Channel 4 don’t immediately sign us up for a new series of ‘The Richard & Bryan Show’, I won’t have done my part for the intellectual development of this country of ours.

I was already sketching out the format of the show which included self defence sessions led by Elberry and Nige’s Magical Owl and Cravat Half Hour. They were ideas which proved that my mind was already firing on all twelve cylinders so I took my bowl of muesli into my office and began to prepare facts and questions that I’d be able to throw into our interview. Would Bryan know, for example, that Wallace Stevens was a trained juggler who wrote some of his best poems while balancing a stool on his chin? Would he know that it’s impossible to electrocute a cat or that 92% of all clowns are diagnosed manic depressive? I have hundreds of facts at my disposal but I really wanted to be prepared for whatever Bryan could throw at me. Channel 4 would struggle to constrain such a battle of intellects and I imagined us bursting through the scenery of the ITN News as our battle continued over on ITV. Katie Derham would flush at the sight of two thin but muscular men in such a titanic struggle.

I think it was thoughts about Katie Derham that made me worked feverishly away until noon when the telephone rang. I expected the call but wasn’t prepared for the tone of the enquiry.

‘Richard, it’s the newly slim-line Bryan,’ said Bryan. ‘I just thought I’d check that you’re not planning on surprising me with any difficult questions this afternoon. A man who has recently lost fourteen pounds in two weeks can’t take the strain of difficult questions.’

‘Difficult questions?’ I scoffed even as I shuffled my pack of fifty seven fiendishly difficult questions and obscure facts. ‘I don’t know what kind of man you think I am, Bryan. I’m looking forward to our interview with the excitement that I normally reserve for Angelina Jolie.’

‘Oh, I don’t have any tattoos,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t believe in them.’

‘Damn,’ I muttered, as my fifty seven difficult questions and obscure facts became fifty six. ‘Well, not to worry, Bryan. Judy just wants to chat about your diet. It will be a piece of cake.’

‘No, no,’ he replied. ‘I don’t touch anything made from grains, legumes, dairy products, salt, refined sugar, or processed oils.’

‘Well, to be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t know what a legumes is,’ I said, wondering if I should scribble that question down on a card.

‘It’s an erect or climbing bean or pea,’ replied Bryan.

A lucky escape, I thought. The man has an answer for everything.

‘Well, don’t worry, Bryan,’ I continued as I prepared to hang up the phone. ‘I’m sure it will go swimmingly...’

‘It’s a diet, not one of those moronic exercise routines. I don’t believe in those either,’ he replied. I could see that I would have my work cut out. Yet in all fairness to the man, I could also see that Bryan was getting nervous and I thought it only right to give him a clue that I had prepared the odd difficult question.

‘Relax, Bryan,’ I said. ‘Remember that you’re with friends. I’ll ask you a few questions to put you at ease. Perhaps something tricky about Wallace Stevens, cats or clowns. I’m sure you’ll know the answers.’

Bryan sighed a thin avuncular sigh. ‘That’s very good of you, Richard,’ he said. ‘Just so long as you don’t go trotting out those old clichés about Wallace Stevens juggling, that it’s impossible to electrocute a cat, or that 92% of all clowns are diagnosed manic depressive...’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ I answered as the last of my cards slipped to the floor. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it at all...’

Choosing The Chosen

A strange shade of email discoloured my VIP inbox last night. Ominously, like some electric eel, it had slipped through a hole in my message rules and found the keep net I have reserved for communications of only the highest importance. There it sat, this eel-mail, you might say if you were to excuse the pun, floundering around among messages from Stephen Fry, Michael Grade and other men and women of international standing. I don’t mean to be rude when I say that this message was much too humble to keep such company. It was from Elberry, you see, and was in such a strange shade of puce that it clashed terribly with Stephen Fry’s messages, which always arrive in that royal blue hue he wears on his cape.

I opened Elberry’s message with trepidation and found that it was a follow up to the comprehensive list of book recommendations he’d left on my previous post. Only, now he was warning me against mentioning a certain book club that has just announced the eight writers that are to be this year’s Chosen. It was all the more ominous because Elberry had sealed the message with ancient runes.

With Judy out of the house and the threat of litigation in the air, I was rightly concerned and decided to ring Elberry this morning and to ask him to explain his oddly coloured message.

The phone rang an age.

Typical NHS, I thought before a voice, polite yet hinting of menace, answered.

‘Elberry,’ said Elberry. ‘Man, sage, poet, mercenary.’

‘Hi Elberry, it’s Dick Madeley here.’

‘Dick? How do you know this number? I’m at work. I can’t speak now... I’m surrounded by wild MILF.’

I had no idea what he was talking about.

‘Cut out the Anglo Saxon lingo, Elb,’ I said. ‘You know I can’t tell a grey elf from a wood MILF. And I only wanted to ask you a quick question. Why do you say I shouldn’t mention the Richard&Judy Book Club on my Appreciation Society?’

‘Ah! Hmm... Urgh...’ he replied, showing off one of the many languages he speaks. Only, unbeknownst to him, I speak fluent Serbo-Croat and understood the meaning of his ‘ah hmm urgh’ gibe.

‘There’s nothing wrong with my elbows,’ I told him, ‘and I fail to see what they have to do with the book club.’

He seemed suitably scolded and I knew he wouldn’t underestimate a man called Madeley again.

‘Sorry about that, Dick,’ he said. ‘I just thought you’d be wise if you didn’t confuse people by recommending books on your site. You know... What with the blog not being officially recognised by the Richard&Judy Foundation.’

‘Only because Judy doesn’t agree with my blogging activities,’ I reminded him. ‘It remains one of the great disappointments of my life. And you know how much it still hurts that people still doubt that it’s really me writing my blog.’

‘Even so,’ said Elberry. ‘I’m just warning you. You don’t want to be getting letters from your own lawyers. They’re a craven lot who will pluck you eyes from your head and eat them under the full moon while making wild bestial noises reminiscent of rabid owls.’

‘So, recommending books is now a privileged activity?’ I asked, not liking the sound of this elitist nonsense. I was quite ready to have it out with Elberry, even if it did mean going barehanded aginst him and his French-made duelling fountain pen.

‘You know I don’t mean that,’ said Elberry.

‘But you don’t think I should try to use my blog to justify this year’s selection to anybody out there who might have reservations about the judging process?’

‘I’m all for promoting reading to as many people as possible,’ he replied, no doubt finding it difficult to try out that strange new tongue known as diplomacy. ‘Except the chavs, of course. We should encourage chavs towards cigarettes, alcohol, hard drugs, and high speed car chases in second-hand FIATs.’

I was about to point out that high speed chases in FIATs is a bit of an oxymoron but I had bigger points to score.

‘Surely, Elberry, in order to promote reading, we must also find the new writers who haven’t had a chance to succeed in this cruel and ever-crowded marketplace. We need to find those obscure literary gems, lost in our small towns and shires, ignored by agents and publishers alike, and have yet to see their genius recognised, their books read by the wider public.’

Elberry sucked on his teeth and then went silent.

It was the kind of silence that fell across Europe in 1938.

‘You think we’ve made a mistake?’ I asked.

‘All I’ll say is that I’m a bit surprised that you’ve chosen Rebecca Miller’s novel as one of your summer reads.’

And there it was! Now I could see the point of Elberry’s email.

‘It’s a damn fine book, or so I’m told,’ I answered. ‘And sorely overlooked. I do like to help a struggling novelist crawl out of poverty.’

‘But Rebecca Miller is married to Daniel Day Lewis!’ cried Elberry. ‘They live an idyllic life in the middle of Ireland. What about me? Surrounded by MILF who don’t understand a word of Latin?’

That I didn’t know. Not about Elberry and his classically ignorant MILF but the bit about Ireland.

‘All the more reason to include Rebecca in our summer reads!’ I said, trying to cover for my ignorance. ‘Can you imagine how hard it must be for her as an unknown Irish writer to get agents and publishers to notice her work? And all because her husband has won a few Oscars! I might add that Daniel Day Lewis’s father wasn’t a bad writer himself, but I still think it gives Daniel no right to steal all the limelight. I’m just delighted that Judy and I can help redress the balance.’

Elberry fell silent again and I could hear the sound of him playing with his new manual typewriter. The clack of keys was quite militaristic, like the sound of chopsticks in a North Korean noodle factory.

‘Look Dick,’ he said after a few meditative moments. ‘I’ve said what I wanted to say and if you choose to ignore my advice, well I can’t be held responsible for the consequences. I just think it rather odd that with all this talk of promoting unknown talent you go and choose the daughter of America’s most famous playwright.’

At this point I might have confessed to having had a little influence on the selection process since I’ve always been an admirer of Arthur Miller’s work. Only, until Elberry had pointed it out, I hadn’t associated the two names. It was all disturbing. Like an enigma wrapped in a puzzle, rolled into a ball of wool full of knots and left out in the rain.

Was Elberry right? Had we made a mistake?

I hung up the phone and sat thinking about the problem until Judy came home.

‘You look glum,’ she said, dropping her fishing gear behind the door.

‘I’ve been on the phone to Elberry,’ I said.

‘The crazy wizard temp with a passion for Old English and hobbit porn?’

‘He can sometimes talk sense,’ I reminded her and went about repeating the conversation I’d just had with Elberry the Wise, Elberry the Grey, Elberry of Many Colours Including Puce.

‘Oh,’ said Judy. ‘Take no notice. Elberry is just jealous like all unpublished writers. They can get so bitter. Yet it would be different if we were helping to make their names. It’s so very petty of them to even mention the fact that we’re promoting the wife of an Oscar winning actor (who was son of a poet laureate), the daughter of the most famous playwright of the twentieth century who was once married to Marilyn Monroe. Does that even matter, so long as the book is bloody good?’

Judy, as always, was the cooling salve on my fevered conscience.

‘You do make me feel so much better, Jude,’ I said. ‘In fact, I’m going to go and pick up Rebecca Miller’s new novel and I’ll read it for myself. Just to prove that we’ve not chosen it out of nepotism...’

‘That’s very good of you, Richard,’ said Judy. ‘And who knows... Perhaps you’ll even pick up a few tips from a proper writer.’

‘But I am a proper writer,’ I objected.

‘Now come on Richard,’ she smiled. ‘You know that’s not true. I mean you haven’t even been published...’

Herring Nipples

While Judy hogs the living room and watches the FA Cup final with Dame Shirley Bassey, I’m spending my afternoon here in my office, catching up with blog business, buffing my elbows, clipping nostril hair, and generally doing that important spot of grooming I’ve put off for so long. One of the problems with the Madeley gene is that the males of the line have the quickest growing nose hair to ever grace a chin. Judy has often suggested that we turn it into high quality matting that I might sell via this blog. It’s a fine idea except I can’t promise a supply a single shade of fibre. An everlasting ‘Welcome Home’ mat is one thing but would you really buy one that’s got flecks of grey in it?

I don’t know why I’m asking you this except I want to also take this opportunity to clear up any outstanding business on this blog. I have a love/hate relationship with my statistics, as indeed, I have with reality, and my posts recently dried up while I came to grips with my new job in Manchester. I even stopped looking to see how many people continued to visit me and never had chance to see who has linked to me, included me in their memes, or generally badmouthing the finest looking man in an electric-violet cummerbund.

First of all to Elberry, who really moved me with his post, ‘The Knights of Madeley’. The thought of being sponsored by my readers touches me deeper than my expert Korean masseur, Hwan Long Finger. However, I’m not a man to take charity. I just ask you to gather at Trafalgar Square next Friday at noon and march on the offices of Random House or Macmillan. I’ve got a firm undertaking from Selena Dreamy that she’ll do the dance of the seven veils before any publishing executive or literary agent willing to put me on their books. (And I would like to take this opportunity of publicly thanking Selena for this kind gesture and for filling in after Vanessa Feltz slipped dropped out during rehearsals. I’d also like to thank The Twitch for handling that situation so well.)

Speaking of heavy matters, I’d like to thank the people at the BBC’s College of Comedy competition for their gracious response to the ten pages of sitcom I submitted to them last month. By not contacting me, they have chosen to preserve my dignity and respect my privacy. I’d like to also thank them for not dragging me into London for the final round of interviews, nor loading my schedule with the onerous duty, as winner, of having to write them a complete sitcom. My loss will ensure that the BBC’s next generation of sitcoms will be of the same standard as the last. Hurrah!

Finally, I would like to send my thanks to 'Maureen Chlorine' for the admirable attempt to render my handsome profile in finger paints but I wonder if she really needed to include my plastic bag in the same picture.

Onto meme business: I’ve been listed in a meme on Monscooch, where I’ve been asked to describe myself in six words. Hard to do. Do they want the ‘real’ Richard or the public Richard? I think I’ll cheat and give them both. So, the public Richard is:

Brash
Bouncy
Affluent
Fertile
Tanned
Gregarious

As for the private Richard, you might say that he’s almost a totally different man. The Richard you get to see on this blog is:

Complicated
Optimistic
Moody
Gullible
Generous
Nige

Which leads me on to Nige’s brief-but-much-appreciated post, to which I was forced to add my own three replies. The problem of being both Nige and myself, writing two blogs a day, is that I sometimes get a little confused as to which persona I’m inhabiting. Am I the wren loving twitcher with a love of English poets or am I Nige? Only time will tell.

Finally, I must mention search terms. It’s always a pleasure to look to see what people have put into Google. Not having examined my statistics in months, I have missed some real gems. The following three caught my attention:

‘Herring nipples’

What more can I say about my favourite brine-flavoured snack? They’re the juicy North Sea chews that you can tickle in your pocket.

‘What’s wrong with Richard Madeley’s left knee?’

I sprained it when I fell over after ogling a mime. It is still giving me a little pain, though I’m glad to report that the last few days has finally seen a small improvement.

‘Who is Richard Madeley?’

A perfect moment to post the description of myself I wrote for my entry on Wikipedia:

Richard Madeley, TV host, writer, blogger, fertility god, and inventor, is the immensely popular and influential host of his own talk show on Channel 4. His wife, Judy, often appears as his special guest. Richard also writes a blog which is even more popular that his TV show. An estimated 4.5 million readers a month read about his adventures with celebrity friends Bill Oddie and Stephen Fry. He has been sued by ex-pat Tunisians, members of the deaf, blind, midget, and homeless societies, and David Dickinson, though he has settled out of court a record number of times. He is currently writing a epic poem based around the lives of his blogging friends.

Towing Caravans With Elberry

I should tell you that I once met Elberry. I have pressed the man's flesh. I have looked into his eyes over a table littered with coffee cups, Thornton's fudge, and unsheathed knives.

It was a strange day when I'd made the long journey up to Manchester to meet that keg of pressurised intellect I'd come to know via the comments he'd left at Thought Experiments. I'd wanted to introduce him to the nation via the teatime show but I soon realised that Elberry is not for a family audience. I was frightened of the man as soon as he approached me outside W.H. Smiths' booth on Victoria Station and asked me if I knew if the trains running to Nottingham stopped at Crewe. It had slipped my mind that this was meant to my coded way of recognising him. Instead, I had tried to get away from this apparent madman and began to make frantic signals to the nearest policeman. However, once the confusion was resolved and handcuffs removed from Elberry's wrists, I headed off into the city with a man whose self-professed aim of the day was to buy himself a new copy of Dante. He explained to me that his old edition had fallen to pieces through overuse.

I ask you now: Is there any way to put a man more on edge than by admitting that you've worn out your copy of The Divine Comedy? Pretty soon it became apparent that Elberry was the most impressive example of what he, himself, describes as the condition of so many office temps: the man or woman of genius 'being used to tow caravans'. He could quote poetry that I'd read and long-since forgotten. He knew foreign languages, which have always been my weakness and the source of much of my own envy. More impressive was the fact that he was unapologetically Elberry. He lacked fear whereas I am nothing but fear. His blog provokes others with his strong viewpoints and pictures of naked flesh, there as bait to those people who are simply not Elberry. In the living flesh, he is no different.

My most embarrassing moment was when I mentioned how I questioned my devotion to a certain brand of notebook. Not having ever had this conversation with a human being before, I mispronounced the name. I still don't know why I thought it was 'moleskin' but Elberry was the first person to put me right. 'I believe it's Moleskine,' he said in what I can only presume was the syllable perfect pronunciation for whatever language it was he was speaking. Ever since that moment, a few hundred yards outside the main city branch of Waterstones and on the corner of the square dominated by The Royal Exchange Theatre, I've thought of Elberry whenever I pick up my 'moleskin' notebook. That one little event has become evidence to me of the distance that lies between my ambitions and my failures, the kind of brain I've always wanted and the sort of brain I actually have.

After a couple of exhausting hours in which my meagre intellect retreated before his seemingly encyclopaedic knowledge of literature, I began the long trip home, wondering what to make of the man who had variously left me feeling full of admiration, confusion, despair, and just a little fear. Elberry remained something of a mirror to me. Only, more recently, I have become more of a mirror to Elberry.

I too have moved into the world of the office temp, though I lack the genius to move even a caravan. Without the powers to both write and work, I have been forced to be far too casual with this blog, a project that has always given me great satisfaction. Not only that, I have produced next to nothing. A few pages of a woeful sit-com and a few blog posts are the product of six weeks writing. I had previously written a novel in that time. Yet it has proved to me that the writer's life sits at odds with those of the office worker. To me, the two things are mutually exclusive.

Bloggers exist on the border between the professional and the amateur. A rare few make a living doing what others aspire towards. The majority of us make less than nothing and are lucky to make even that. Yet a cherished few symbolise the woeful gulf that exists between productivity and reward. Despite mundane office chores, they still live a live that isn't compromised by mental exhaustion, commuting, or the drudge of earning a wage. Whatever their achievement, whether it is being deep, difficult, intractable, witty, wise, gentle, or homely, they remain loyal to themselves.

This brief ramble was prompted by an email from Elberry this morning. It made me realise that I'm finally beginning to understand the forces that have moulded the man. He thinks in terms of epochs but lives in a world of Formica and open plan workspaces. In private, he sends the most supportive emails, devoid of all the blood, mucus, and bile. He communicates with me when I'm feeling down and for this I just wanted to thank him. It's as if he fully understands how the prolonged silence of another man who lives to write is really a cry for help.

The New Regimen

After two weeks living according to “the new regimen” I've come to the conclusion that I'm in desperate need of good luck and for my life to change. Tickle an Oddie by the chin and you have a happy man. Only not every man can be pacified so easily. We Madeley men are of bulkier intellectual stock. As Judy and I compete for the literary honours, I've taken an early lead. My new novel is 20,000 words long and Judy is lagging far behind. Yet in the time I've been away from you, I've been feeling utterly miserable. It's been going on for too long. I need to vent.

You might have noticed my silence on the blog and the less-than-stellar performances I've been putting into the afternoon show. I'm finding it difficult to blog. I lack the usual spark. Does it have something to do with the ongoing problems of my one-handed assistant? Oddly enough, I don't think it does. Is it Stephen's absence from my life or the solitary habits of Oddie when spring approaches? I think it more likely. But I also suspect that my 7AM starts are destroying me. 'Eye of the Storm 2' has the mendacity of a flesh eating virus. I find that I struggle through days caring less and less about the world around me. There's a grim satisfaction in climbing in bed at night, so tired that my worries won't keep me awake and happy that the virus has left me with my limbs.

I suppose there's no disguising the indignity of the work, of the place where my talents have brought me. I want to get back to being the old Richard, writing too much and telling you all about my days spent in celebrity adventure. I really do. Instead, I've taken to secluding myself at night in the garage where I've started to hatch plans. I'm slowly turning into Elberry but without the intellectual vigour to accompany my moods. This work breeds solitary men with grievances who bookmark the addresses of mail order retailers who sell hunting knives and crossbows.

The Shirt Off My Back

On most mornings, I wake up fearing criminal prosecution. On what charge, I’m really not sure. But I do know the source of these cold sweats. It’s the same thing that causes my heart to murmur and my intestines to sing baritone. The worry comes from my statistics. I’ve noticed that lawyers are now keeping an eye on this blog.

Why Stephen Fry might have hired lawyers in St. Louis, Missouri, I have reason to wonder. Perhaps it’s Oddie. More likely Paxman, despite his having a 200 hundred line mock heroic epistle dedicated to him. How many journalists can say the same?

Then again, my homeless friends have not posted in a while. Has The Homeless Chicken taken offence and decided to have the shirt off my back? Perhaps it’s J.W.H. Madeley, the famous herring magnate. He too has been out of contact for a while, despite my authoring his official biography. Has he set his lawyers the task of reclaiming the Madeley fortune in order to fund another plundering of the Icelandic herring stock?

Closer to home, one must wonder about my fellow bloggers. Has Ms. Baroque decided to prosecute for the sake of all true poets? Did Chip Dale come out of his gloom and decided to make his fortune by suing me? Have I upset Nige by revealing to the world that he’s really Bill Oddie? Then again, I went and told you all about Elberry’s troublesome digestion and his need for stool softener. After spilling the beans about his beans (excuse the image), might he have decided to come after me for deformation of character?

Bryan Appleyard is a busy man but is he too busy to sue? Then there’s the mysterious Selena Dreamy. Could she be a Mata Hari, meant to entice me with her peerless wit before revealing herself to be the legal representative of Jordan’s left nipple, about which I have had only bad things to say?

David Dickinson’s groin has become something of a joke in these parts but when you’ve got parts like David Dickinson, you wouldn't think it a joking matter. Lawyers must be informed. But lawyers in St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States? It makes me wonder who I can have offended of such international acclaim. Could it be one of my many wives from my polygamous marriages? Could it be PETA out to get me for promoting the wearing of ocelot hats?

Whatever the reason, the lawyers in St. Louis, Missouri are apparently keeping close tabs on me. I make this appeal directly to them: please don’t sue me! I’m a poor man with only the clothes on my back. Would you really want to leave Judy without a home?

[Update]

What do you mean you’re working for Judy?