The Wisdom of Mark Twain

‘There are wise people who talk ever so knowingly and complacently about “the working classes,” and satisfy themselves that a day’s hard intellectual toil is very much harder than a day’s hard manual toil, and is righteously entitled to much bigger pay. Why, they really think that, you know, because they know all about the one, but haven’t tried the other. But I know all about both; and so far as I am concerned, there isn’t money enough in the universe to hire me to swing a pick-axe thirty days, but I will do the hardest kind of intellectual work for just as near to nothing as you can ciper it down – and I will be satisfied too.’

Mark Twain, ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’.

As I am helpfully reminded at least eight times a day, the new series of ‘The Richard&Judy Show’ begins on Monday. That’s fine with me. I don’t use the word ‘work’ to describe the activity of chatting with interesting people on a sofa for an hour a day. It might be challenging, deeply intellectual and occasionally dangerous, but it also makes me happy. I’ll also be writing all the time, my laptop stuck under a cushion on the sofa, and often blogging from the set.

However, once the series comes to an end, I’m seriously considering taking up a new line of work. I know we’ve signed a contract to go over to satellite TV but I think I’d be much more suited to driving petrol tankers for a living. I know that I’ll certainly be better off.

If these underpaid souls can go on strike because they don’t earn over £41,000 a year, I think most of us are in the wrong jobs. When I heard of their demands on Sky News this morning, I thought at first that their unreasonable wage demands must relate to the danger of their jobs. These are the men and women who are behind the wheel when tankers roll over on motorways, go screeching down the crash barriers, sparks flying. It only takes one spark to ignite all that petrol and then BOOM! I’ve seen it happen so often in films. It must be dangerous work and at least twice as dangerous as that of any squaddie who goes into battle in Afghanistan for the princely sum of £18,000 a year.

I must admit, though. From personal experience, it’s a rare day when I see a petrol tanker go sidling on its side down the motorway. I don’t know about the relative dangers of the Afghan front line but I do see what nurses do each day and the same is true of teachers and the police. So, could somebody please explain to me why the driver of a petrol tanker earns twice the amount as my friend who works as a secondary school teacher, who is in school at eight in the morning and rarely finishes marking homework until ten o’clock at night?

Or is Twain right? Will we all do the hardest kind of intellectual work for just as near to nothing? Do we need to pay these people a fortune to tolerate the mind-numbing banality of following a map to petrol station forecourts? If so, then I should have earned £100,000 every time I head up to Manchester. And I should pay the same for the chance to do what I’m about to go and do. I’m going to write and I will be satisfied too.

The Week Ahead

As you might have noticed: it's Sunday and I'm still in a sombre mood after a tiring week behind the scenes of both the blog and TV show. You'll just have to excuse my lack of fizz today in the knowledge that I've got something a little special to post tomorrow when another of my regular guests will take over for the day with a feature article. I can't say too much about it as the man has yet to submit the final piece, but I'm sure it will live up to the usual high journalistic standards I expect for contributors to this blog. I've also decided that Dennis will have another attempt at writing for the blog towards the end of the week and I can promise that there will be no mentions of either darts or Peter Manley. I can also state with confidence that this week, The Richard Madeley Appreciation Society will be a stump free zone, so, please, no more letters of complaint...

If there are any other celebrity friends you think I should ask to write for me, you should really suggest them in the comments and I'll see what I can do. Not all agents are willing to put my requests through to their clients, but I know a few celebrities personally and might be able to offer them ten minutes on the show in exchange for a couple of thousand words.

Which reminds me to tell you to watch out for the announcement this week that we've got a few big guests coming on the Channel 4 show. He's not yet been confirmed by we're hopefully getting Oscar hopeful, Daniel Day Lewis, into the studio to give us some cobbling tips, while later in the week Johnny Depp will be in to teach Judy the Hollywood secrets of how to clean mildew from between bathroom tiles.

As you can see, guys, it's going to be an exciting few days.

The Good Push

With the new week you find a new guest at the Madeley home. Bill Oddie’s come to stay with us for a couple of days while his leg heals. As you might have read, poor Bill was accidentally skewered by an errant heron last week. I don’t want to get into the medical details of his wound but I will say that he still has three inches of beak still buried in his right thigh. Walking is now difficult for him and he's troubled by these strange cravings for freshwater fish...

If you think that an accident like this would dent a man’s love for his avian friends, you don't know Bill. It has, however, disappointed him in other ways, such as the lack of fan mail he’s been receiving, or not receiving as is the case. But as I’ve been trying to explain to him, we celebrities have allowed ourselves to be treated as something other than human. It’s only natural when people forget that we need love and encouragement like everybody else.

Take this poll I've been reading about this morning. Doesn’t it prove that we British are a credulous lot when large portions of our fellow countrymen believe that Winston Churchill was a figment of some writer’s imagination? They also think that Sherlock Holmes was a real turn-of-the-century detective. Among the other famous figures who many believe are myths are Richard the Lionheart and Charles Dickens. The report doesn’t say where Madeley ranks, though I know that many people think that I don’t exist, despite the evidence of this blog and my daily appearances on Channel 4.

And this is the point I was making to Bill. The fact that the public confuse fact and fiction is perhaps a reason why we’ve never had the revolution I’ve been hoping for these last few years. I don’t mean to overthrow wealth, or anything as trivial as that. I mean the moment when the great British public dispel the illusion of British Media and start to support projects like The Richard&Judy Show which are the product of real talent.

‘There’s something abhorrent about this country,’ I said as I pushed Bill around the garden this morning in his wheelchair. ‘Nepotism strikes at the heart of everything we try to achieve.’

‘That reminds me,’ he replied. ‘How’s your daughter, Chloe, doing with all those reporting jobs you’ve been giving her for the show?’

‘Don’t talk about family, Bill. You know I won’t and don’t. And, quite frankly, I don’t see what that has to do with my comments on nepotism.’

‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘Don’t know what made me ask. Perhaps I thought it significant…’

I decided to ignore his comments as the ramblings of a man high on painkillers and beak. Besides, it was irrelevant to the point I was trying to make.

‘I was watching the BBC news the other night and they had a guest reviewing the papers. I thought her face looked vaguely familiar and, sure enough, I soon realised that it was Boris Johnson’s sister. Odder still was the fact that she was there, on national TV, criticising MPs for hiring their family.’

‘I don’t see your point,’ said Bill.

‘I can’t even get a job writing film reviews for The Leamington Observer, but the Johnson family alone account for half the column inches written in the nation’s broadsheets. A mere coincidence? I think not.’

I could tell by the way that Bill’s ears began to flush that I’d roused him.

‘Damn them,’ he snarled. ‘Tell me what we can we do about it?’

‘What indeed?’ I asked and lay a reassuring hand on his shoulder. ‘But the problem doesn’t end with the talented Boris Johnson and his equally gifted siblings. I turned on BBC2 last night to watch “Ski Sunday” thinking I’d be in for some high-speed piste action. Only, what did I find? That they’d changed the format of the show. No more can I watch David Vine having fun at the expense of foreigners have big spills on lethal seventy degree slopes of blue ice. Instead, they’d dropped some fashionable young type on the top of a mountain and the whole thing has become a festival of celebrity. The licence fee is now being used to give celebrities free ski lessons. I don’t know about you, Bill, but I resent my money going to teach Ben Fogel how to knock a few seconds off his slalom time.’

Bill went quiet as he watched something through his binoculars. Finally, he lowered them and gestured for me to push on which I duly did.

‘You see, Bill, I’m a man who likes to think that we get where we’re going on our own power. Celebrity connections are one thing but is there anything as sad as watching a celebrity pushing the career of a friend or relative?’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Bill, suddenly struggling in his chair. He threw aside the rug that had been across his legs and pushed himself to his feet. ‘I thought you were trying to tell me something.’

Hobbling, he began to head down towards the lake.

‘Where you going?’ I shouted after him.

‘I’m going to see Stephen Fry,’ he said.

‘He’s in America.’

‘The other Stephen Fry,’ said Bill. ‘And you needn’t come. I can get there under my own power. After all, there’s nothing as sad as watching a celebrity pushing around a friend.’

Overwhelmed with fondness for the poor fellow, I smiled as I slowly followed after him. There are times when helping a friend is the best thing that a celebrity can do. Especially when that friend has beak shaped shrapnel.

The Carr Crash

You might know that I’ve never been the world’s biggest fan of Alan Carr since the moment I first heard him speak. He’d just shunted me from behind on Hamstead Heath and his voice reminded me of the howl of a Barbary monkey undergoing hormone replacement therapy. It's why I was so adamant in my refusal when Judy put his name forward as a guest on the new series of The Richard&Judy Show.

‘If he appears then you can find yourself another sofa partner,’ I said yesterday lunchtime as I poured hot water over a leak and onion cup-a-soup.

Judy was scrubbing down the sink at the time and the name had come to her after a rush of others that had included Liza Minnelli, Paul Ross, John Updike, Roger Moore, and David Bellamy.

‘You have to come up with more interesting names, Richard,’ she said, treating me as harshly as the mildew around the taps. ‘You can’t keep suggesting the same old guests.’

‘Same old guests?’ I replied. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Whenever we ask you for suggestions you only ever say Bill Oddie, Stephen Fry, and Jeremy Clarkson.’

‘But they’re my kind of people. Why should I go out of my way chumming up to the likes of Monty Don when we’ve got Bill Oddie? And what can David Bellamy tell us about a subject that Stephen hasn’t already researched?’

‘It’s not the point,’ said Judy. ‘People want a bit of variety in their lives. When we introduce guests, we don’t want to be seen introducing the same faces, week after week.’

I took Judy’s words on board and contemplated them over the course of yesterday when I withdrew slightly from the public eye. Judy probably has a point. I’m just too loyal to my friends and when Stephen breathes an utterance, I want to report it to you without delay. The fact that we’ve begun working writing next year’s ITV hit series, Bunion, gives me even more reason to talk about the Great Man. As, indeed, the coming Spring will see Bill Oddie come out of hibernation and I’ll have many more things to tell you about The Bearded One.

Yet, if Judy is right, I should also bring you news about other people.

Which brings me back to Alan Carr. Was I right to hold a grudge against the man just because he once shunted me from behind on Hamstead Heath?

‘Oooooooohhh, look what you’ve done!’ I remember him saying as he climbed out of his enormous jet black 4x4 with glittered trim.

Back then, I was driving my Jag and I was not best pleased to discover the bumper twisted to hell and back.

‘What I’ve done?’ I laughed, squaring up to the man who’s bigger than you’d expect. ‘You’re the one who wasn’t looking where he was going.’

‘Oh, I can’t be held responsible for that!’ he replied. ‘I can’t be held responsible for that! You just put on your brakes like you wanted me to come up your behind.’

‘If you weren’t tailgating me, it wouldn’t have happened.’

‘Tailgating?’ he hissed, if indeed you can hiss a word made up of ‘t’s and ‘g’s. ‘Is that meant to be some kind of homophobic joke?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Now it was my turn to sound insulted. ‘Homophobic? Don’t you know that you’re speaking to one of the nation’s gay icons? I’ve been voted pin-up of the year by the Pink Paper for seven out of the last ten years.’

‘Don’t give me a laugh. It’s Judy we all love. Not you. I mean, who’d lust after you?’

And with that, he’d climbed back into his monster truck and drove off without even leaving me his insurance details. Since then, I’ve gone cold whenever his name is mentioned. Or, indeed, whenever I’ve heard a Barbary monkey scream.

These memories were rattling around in my mind last night, until finally, around eight o’clock, I decided that life would be better if I didn’t hold on to my grudges. I rang my agent who soon came back with the number to Alan’s mobile phone.

‘Hello Alan,’ I said, trying to sound upbeat. ‘It’s me. Richard Madeley.’

‘Oh, pin up of the year,’ he said, knowing, no doubt, that since our little argument, I’d lost my pin-up of the year status to the moustached Chuckle Brother. ‘What you ringing me at eight o’clock on a Friday for?’

‘I’m ringing to say I’m sorry about that incident last year and to invite you on the show.’

‘Sorry dear, I don’t do afternoons.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘If it’s alright with you,’ he said, ‘I prefer to keep my brand of slightly indecent humour for the evening audiences which will appreciate such things.’

‘This was meant to be an attempt at reconciliation,’ I said.

‘Reconciliation!’ he squealed. ‘l’m sure it is for you but those of use whose stars are rising do not need help from those whose stars are fading.’

‘Now you just listen,’ I began but at that moment Judy and Stephen walked in the room. ‘Listen,’ I hissed. ‘You’ll know what that’s like sooner than you think... I’ve got two words for you, mate. Julian Clary. Julian Clary!’

And with that, I hung up the phone.

‘Did I hear Julian Clary’s name being used as a not-too idle threat?’ asked Stephen, taking his seat next to Judy as they prepared to watch Gardener’s World.

‘Alan Carr doesn’t want to be on the show,’ I said to Judy.

‘Well at least you did the friendly thing and asked.’

‘I did that,’ I said, darkly. ‘I most certainly did that.’

Richard Reviews: The Richard&Judy Show (14/1/08)

There is no way of diminishing the disappointment one feels when watching oneself on television. Things you wish you’d done better, questions you should have asked, intimacies that were probably best left private: they all hasten a man’s hand as it reaches for the remote control as he reviews his day's work around midnight. Yet an occasional glance at the handsome chap chatting on the TV can also be liberating. As the ancient Greeks advised: know thyself! To judge Madeley as though he were a famously gifted contemporary can be quite a revelation if your name also happens to be Madeley. It also stays the hand when all it wants to do is to switch over to Busty Babes UK.

Up to this afternoon, I’d been living in the swampland known as denial. I didn’t want to acknowledge that I had to return to Channel 4. Even as late as this morning, I was more concerned by my life beyond the contract than I was in the guests we’d had booked for the first show of our new series. Judy had only reminded me at lunchtime that the limo would be picking us up at two o’clock. I had planned on spending the afternoon with Clarkson, stalking A.A. Gill around some of London’s choicest restaurants, flicking peas at him as he tried write up his notes on the grub. Instead, I was stuck sobbing in the back of a limo as we made our slow way to the studios down in Kennington.

The Richard&Judy Show may still be the jewel in the Channel 4 crown but the studios had the same unmistakable smell of menopausal pickled onions. The faces were all the same and so were the bodies, despite the constant chatter about diets and New Years resolutions that greeted my arrival. Being the only man working on the show can sometimes make conversation limited. I think it explains the number of male friends I have outside the Richard&Judy phenomenon and why all of them appreciate what it means to shoot black powder long bore rifles whenever we can at the weekend.

As for the actual recording of the show: I thought it went remarkably well. Only watching it now on the Sky+ box do I see how we failed in our stated objective to begin the series on a subdued note. It will hard to maintain this quality over the run of the whole series. All I can guess is that the adrenaline took over. After half an hour, I was in blisteringly good form.

We began with an interview with Janet Street Porter. As soon as I saw her in the green room, I knew she was going to clash with the sofa. Before we went on air, I even asked her if she’d slip out of her horrendous green tights but Janet just responded by calling me ‘a misogynous prig’. You might have read about our long history of mutual dislike going back to our well publicised falling out over the matter of Lebanese butter. It was back in the days of ‘This Morning’ up in Liverpool. I’d made an offhand remark about Janet’s taste for low fat spreads and she’d told me off for being uncultured. That had led me to make an offhand joke about her love for butter made from camel milk. I still don’t know what she has against me but the feud has simmered for all these years and I can't see there ever being peace. Either in the Middle East or between Madeley and Porter.

Despite this, when the cameras are on her, Janet remains the consummate professional. She chatted away through the segment without once mentioning camel butter. I managed to avoid commenting on the gangrenous colour of her legs. That’s not to say that the first ad break wasn’t tense. Janet had me pinned against the wall and threatened to remove my feet at the ankles. Judy had to beat her off me with a cushion and things were barely settled by the time we all came back from the commercials. We chatted about her new book and then I had security escort her from the building as Judy and I moved on to chat with the nation’s chirpiest toff, Ben Fogle.

I hadn’t seen Ben since the incident at Ainsley Harriott’s house when one of my least sociable gastric discharges had re-stained the Italian marble in the bathroom. Ben was on the show to plug his new series in which he’s been helping people overcome the problems in their lives through adventure. I was so sure he was going to mention my tricky gut and recommend that I try canoing up the Nile to teach it a lesson. He didn’t, which shows what a good sport he is. But I was still a bit worried about him spreading malicious gossip about me so he too was soon being led from the building by security.

To be honest, after the next break, the show became pure Judy. I had to sit there in the presence of some of the ghastliest paintings produced by the wit of man. It was, quite frankly, embarrassing as I listened to Judy turn poetic as she described pictures made from vegetables and raw fish. My poor wife has so little taste you’d think her a custodian of the Tate. I’d wouldn’t mind if she’d allowed me to give the segment a bit of class by asking Carl Warner if he compared his studies of foodstuffs with vanitas paintings of that period of counter Reformation in Europe of the seventeenth century. I wanted to know if his garish landscapes were a comment on the artificiality of food and by extension, human life, at the beginning of the twenty first century, in a similar way to those Protestant artists who depicted decaying fruit as symbolising the mortality of the flesh and an ethic of worldly suffering. Judy just thought it better to ask him if he enjoyed working with vegetables. I was relieved when we’d made it to another break and that’s when I told the artist what I really thought of his work and had the security guard escort him from the building. For the life of me, I still don’t know why we couldn’t have used that time to help some talented unknown artist find a market.

I’m similarly dubious about our video clips segment which is another of Judy’s babies. This week’s selection distinguished the brain dead from the truly moronic: a dancing parrot, a whistling belly button, the ubiquitous accident involving a caravan, and a comically frowning baby. My favourite remains the German juggling hammers, which gives me endless delight to know that we’re promoting dangerous stunts on national television without any warnings about ‘trying this at home’. Mark my words: this year will be known as the year when accidents with claw hammers shot through the roof. Or, more accurately, got stuck in the roof before coming back down and embedding themselves in the skull of some inept juggler.

The last segment was our interview with Martin Freeman. By this point, I was completely out of it. I can barely remember what I said. As usual, I hadn’t read the notes before the interview and had expected Martin to be my favourite black actor from America. I was hugely disappointed that I couldn’t ask the questions I’d prepared about ‘Seven’ and ‘The Shawshank Redemption’. Instead, I had this pasty-faced English Joe blathering on about some film he’s made with an unknown filmmaker, who just happens to be Gwyneth Paltrow’s brother. There is no man working in show business who takes a dimmer view of nepotism in the arts. If Paltrow had been on the show, you can be sure that I’d have had an security escort him from the building.

And that, as they say, was a wrap. Despite all my prevaricating about going back on TV, I can’t recall ever being in such good form at the beginning of a series. I won’t be re-watching any future episodes, so I won’t be boring you any more of these behind the scenes anecdotes. I know you all love the show but, to be honest, it’s not for me. It helps pay the bills but what man in his right mind wants to spend his day admiring luminous landscapes made from potatoes and peas?

Now, I have to get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a tough day for Madeley, the unpublished writer. We’re interviewing Pauline McLynn (Mrs Doyle from Father Ted) about her sixth novel. That’s right. Her sixth! I have some interesting anecdotes about Norman Mailer I want to run past her.