A Day On The River

The farcical nature of the lurid headlines that accompany any development in the Richard & Judy saga are perhaps more apparent to me than anybody else. Judy is far too engrossed in the affairs at her Snooker and Billiard Club for any of the headlines to really affect her, whereas I’m a man with his eyes fixed on the here and now, measuring the temperature of the cultural waters with my smooth and (some might say) debonair elbows.

‘How did they hear about our taking part in Strictly Come Dancing?’ I asked, as I drew Judy’s eye to the newspaper headlines from earlier last week. Her back was creaking with the strain of rowing us up the long stretch of river towards the start line of the pro-celebrity boat race they hold in our undisclosed part of rural North London each year. We were a little late on account of my forgetting to pack my parasol and Judy was rowing furiously to get us there on time.

Judy puffed out her cheeks as the boat rolled into a stretch of turbulent current. ‘I guess... they found out... because... you’ve been flapping... your yap... on Twitter again,’ she gasped.

‘I’m quite discreet whenever I tweet,’ I said in my defence as I stretched out with a loud yarn that ended with my hand dipping lazily into the water. ‘In fact, if it weren't such hard work, I would have brought my laptop with me now. I’d quite like to tweet about the pleasures of boating.’

One of Judy’s oars got snagged in a bit of weed and she cursed as she dragged it in. A fisherman’s line had got wrapped around the coxswiddle (forgive me if I don’t know the exact technical terms), binding the weeds to the oar along with a newly dead swan. I turned away as Judy set about cutting them away with her teeth.

‘Yes,’ I mused, ‘the pleasures of boating...’

Once we were back under way and Judy was into her 72 strokes per minute rhythm, she returned to the topic of our previous discussion. ‘You might think you’re discreet, Richard,’ she replied, spitting out a swan feather and a fragment of beak, ‘but you’ve already let slip about your nocturnal wanderings.’

‘I’m cursed with an unrealistically small bladder,’ I explained, lifting my hand from the water as I realised that it was likely to set me off. ‘It's not my fault I have to visit the bathroom five times a night.’

‘Well,’ sniffed Jude, ‘I suppose you can’t defy physics. A man either has svelte hips or a generous capacity for liquid retention.’

That, I couldn’t deny. The Madeleys have always been of a slender cast; our hips 24% narrower than the girth of the average ‘A’ list celebrity (discounting, of course, Phil Jupitus and Johnny Vegas). It accounts for my natural abilities to move easily around on a sofa. Many have been the times that people have asked me how I move from one position to another within the fraction of a second it takes a camera to change angle. I put it down to my whip-like hips. I can go from open-thighed casual banter to knee-tight penetrative questioning in the blink of an eye. Next time you meet me, ask me to show you my ‘hip crack’. There are not many people who are able to break the sound barrier with their pelvis. As far as I know, it’s just me, Tom Jones, and Katie Price, although I have been told that her hips are now mostly made from rubber so it doesn’t count if it came to World Records.

‘I should really get Dennis to put out a press release denying this,’ I said, picking up the newspaper again. ‘I know you’re eager for this Strictly Come Dancing gig, Jude, but I worry that it wouldn’t sit well with my new younger audience. I don’t want to alienate my Twitter followers by being seen doing the cha-cha-cha with Bruce Forsyth. No offence, Jude, but what would my followers think of their favourite Uncle Dick if he portrayed himself as part of “the older generation”? Oh no. I can’t just think about us now, Jude. I have to think about the likes of @lurethesea and @Boltonwanderer who are begging for me to teach them the banjo. And then there’s @LaChatNoir and @alangoodenough, good people and talented in their own special ways. There’s my good friend @trevward who is currently learning judo so he can become by bodyguard. And what about @Drolgerg? It’s a public service to keep a man like that off the streets. @midfieldgeneral too, with his unwholesome interest in “On the Buses”, or @rebeccaholder who is just finishing drawing my adventures in comic strip form. And that’s not even mentioning @red1hols (and his blog), @Rasberrysmile, @zebedeejane, @BigDaws, @weenick, @stormyjoolz, @PAFoster, @Jellybabycakes, @over40something (who also has a blog), @Cigleris, @2legs, @ladyliz, @MandyPandy32 (whose cause, Jude, I keep saying deserves promoting), @oleuanna, @Footbacon in Sheffield, @HomoAsbo (he scares me, Jude, he scares me), @RealMissyBlues, @Tori_Da (with her unfortunale Harry Potter obsession), @TrippyPip, @fuzzilu, @welshracer, @martinpickering, @lightnet1, @Catvamp, @maxine_c, @diskgrinder, @lauramcguire83, @kandysays and @debsa. Who is to look after them? Especially @debsa...’

By the time I’d finished with this quite spontaneous roll call from off the top of my head, we were about two miles further up the river and Judy had apparently forgotten that I’d asked her a question. We turned a final bend in the river and the start line came into view. The other boats were already ready and the race officials were soon waving us to get into line.

‘Better bend your back, love,’ I said. ‘Don’t want to annoy Trevor MacDonald. Not after he disqualified us last year after my urine tested positive for ambrosia.’

As Judy moved us into the outside line, a shout went up from a familiar and not-too-welcome source.

‘You took your bloody time,’ shouted David Dickinson from his canoe. He was already down to his vest and his muscles glistened in the morning sun like hand crafted walnut knobs on a Queen Anne commode.

‘Ah, belt up Dickinson,’ I cried, swatting in his direction with my rolled up parasol. ‘You should just get ready to suck at our wake.’

‘You cheeky bloody bugger,’ he cried back but I dismissed him with a two fingered wave.

‘Come on,’ I muttered to Jude, ‘let’s give him a run for his money.’

Were I a latter day Patrick O'Brian, I would describe how I, as both master and commander of my vessel, had tightened the rigging, lay aside my cucumber sandwich and given Judy a speech worthy of Trafalgar. I would describe how her sinews tightened like rope, taught in the stiffening nor-easterly, as, from the embankment, the cry went up and Ronnie Corbett’s voice echoed across the lake.

‘Ah, ha! Now then... Well! Ha! As the bishop said to the nudist... Oh my goodness! Go!’

Judy’s arms worked those oars like she was back skinning otters on our holiday in the Faeroe Isles. She has an upper body strength that belies her size and femininity. Many times we’ve had big name Hollywood actors on the show and, in the green room later, I’ve suggested they try arm wrestling with Judy. They look at me as though I’m mad but it’s only when Jude has rolled up a sleeve that they’ve realised I was serious. She beat Sylvester Stallone four times about five when we were back on ITV and he was in his Rambo prime.

Say what you like about Dickinson, he’s got some stamina. He stayed with us up to the mile mark but then caught some of our wash and lost ground rapidly.

‘You hear me Madeley? The next time you won’t be so bloody lucky!’

‘Well next time, perhaps you shouldn’t use a mahogany canoe!’

Judy liked that. Or I think she did. It was hard to tell the woman’s emotions when she’s as red as a beetroot and sweating like Lee Evan’s in a microwave.

As we crossed the finishing line, she fell back and I cracked open a bottle of champagne I’d brought with me to celebrate our -- or, I suppose, more correctly, I should say ‘my’ -- victory.

‘Well,’ I said, standing up and waving to the crowd. ‘Today, Richard & Judy have conquered the Thames. Who knows what other victories lie ahead?’

At those words, the right side of the ampersand sat up, her brow beaded with sweat. ‘So, does that mean we’re entering “Strictly Come Dancing”?’

I pulled my lips from the bottle and wiped the fizz from my lips. ‘We’ll see, Jude,’ I said, ‘we’ll see...’

The Real Story Behind Yesterday's Richard&Judy Announcement

Stretched out on her La-z-Boy recliner about a month ago, my dear wife, Judy, switched off the vibrating headrest for a moment and turned to me with a quizzical look chevroned between her brows.

'You know,' she said, gesturing with her bar of the dark yet milky towards her favourite film playing on our 72 inch plasma widescreen, 'how on earth are we meant to compete with this?'

I looked up over my book and dragged my spectacles to the end of my slender and twin nostrilled Julius Caesar.

'Compete?' I asked, following the aim of her Whispa bar to the sight of Bruce Willis' first and best bloody vest staining the screen red. 'What makes you think we need to compete?'

Judy shrugged. 'Look at the time, Richard. It's on at the same hour as our show would be playing on Watch.'

'So?' I asked softly, never one to take Judy's worries too seriously.

'They work by different rules on satellite TV,' she replied. 'Unless you're going to start wearing vests and shooting terrorists in your bare feet, we're never going to attract a big enough audience on Watch.'

I could see her point. With bloody violence oozing out of Sky Movies pre-watershed, why would anybody choose to sit down and watch Judy and myself interviewing Simon Le Bon about his new apple orchard in Herefordshire?

'You worry too much,' I said, bringing the conversation to premature close. Judy shrugged and pressed the big red button the recliner's arm. The room was quickly filled with the sound of electric motors and chattering teeth, and I went back to my monograph on sub-atomic physics.

I thought no more about Judy's fears until last week when she was out leading her brass band in a spot of light regimental parading around the neighbourhood.

I'd come in after a hard day covering for Sarah Kennedy down at the BBC. I had the house to myself so I naturally slipped off my trousers and fed myself into my favourite dressing gown. Not only did the silk feel good against my skin but the ermine trim tickled my thighs in a manner both pleasant and relaxing.

It was around eight o'clock and I had punched in the code for Sky Movies. Alien3 was just coming on and, being a huge admirer of Sigourney Weaver, I decided to spend the rest of the night in her company. Soon I was sitting with a tub of Ben & Jerry's pistachio ice cream in my lap and was I tutting at the bit where the late dear Brian Glover disappears through the ceiling in the spray of an arterial fountain. That's when the phone rang.

I picked it up, slipped it beneath my chin and carried on scooping the cold stuff.

'Madeley,' I said.

'Dickie!' cried a voice.

A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with either Ben or Jerry wedged between my thighs. It was The Agent.

'I'm a bit busy,' I explained. 'Sigourney's down to just her underwear and a flame thrower.'

'I'm ringing with some bad news,' he said. 'Watch are having second thoughts about your Twittering.'

'My Twittering?'

'They think you're doing too much of it and you're being far too interesting.'

'Pah!' I spat. A pistachio arced across the room and stuck to the end of Charles Dance's proboscis.

'I know,' said The Agent. 'Rather foolish of them but they feel it might look a bit odd if your followers on Twitter got any bigger than the average audience watching you on Watch.'

'I see,' I said. 'So, you want me to quit?'

'Not quit,' said The Agent. 'They just want you to be a little less entertaining. You know… Take a leaf out of Philip Schofield's book. Make lots of meaningless statements like: "oh, that sounds interesting" and "I haven't thought of that but is it purple?"'

'Is it purple?'

'That's the sort of the thing they're after,' he said. 'Listen, I've emailed you a few suggestions. Give it some thought and tell me what you think. But you've got to change your ways Dickie. The people at Watch won't stand for any more of your nonsense.'

Well, after this conversation, my mind couldn't rest. With Sigourney still battling men in latex suits, I dragged my new laptop to my lap and powered it up.

It's Dell XPS Studio 13, which meant that my lap went from about -5% to something in the high scorching. Frankly, I was glad that my thighs didn't shatter like a red-hot alien under a sudden shower of cold water.

Date: Thu, 29 April 2009 21:29:11 +0000

From: ************** <*******@**********.co.uk>

To: dickmadeley@yahoo.co.uk

Message-Id: <4a065b155c354b3f9d41453f@*****.co.uk>

Subject: Your bloody Twittering

Mime-Version: 1.0

Dear Dick,

When are you going to learn? I've just come off the phone with the people from Watch. They are very displeased with you, Dickie, dear boy. They've been reading your Twitter account and think it's most inappropriate. They want to know why you can't be this entertaining on the show! Can't you at least get a few of your Twitter followers to 'follow' you onto Watch?

So, we've been banging a few ideas around and we think it's best if you stop being so damn interesting on Twitter. It looks bad for the show. Look at how Schofield does it. Can't you Twitter like him? He never once outdoes his show. Remember, Dickie, that banality is the key. That's why we want you to try a few of these @Schofe-like 'tweets'.

'Interesting. I like pudding.'
'I think that's currently unlikely.'
'Chicken? LOL. I'd rather have feathers.'
'I don't. Judy has the bigger thumb.'
'Yes but sometimes no. Other times: maybe.'
'I had one. I fell off and I couldn't glue it back on.'
'Ditto.'
'Perhaps.'
'Too soon.'

The list went on for page after page of this tedious stuff and, when Judy got home at ten, she found me blubbering in front of the TV, a bucket of melted ice cream at my side and the large shaved head of Ms. Sigourney Weaver looking down on my from the TV.

'When will you learn that she only ever goes as far as her knickers in these films?' Judy mocked as she dropped her trombone case by the door.

'It's not that,' I said and explained about The Agent's phone call and Watch's concern at my Twittering.

Judy's face hardened like she was trying to blow the high C at the end of 'The Thunderbird's March'.

'Well, that's it,' she said, coming to put a consoling arm around my shoulder. 'If it's a choice between your Twittering and our show on an obscure satellite channel, I choose your Twittering.'

I wiped away a tear or possibly even two.

'Really?' I gasped. To say I was shocked would be an understatement. Judy has often expressed how she frowns upon my involvement with social networking, comparing it with the time I took an interest in amateur operatics in order to wear lederhosen.

'Richard. You have to do what your heart tells you. If you really want to waste your time and talent making glib comments to thousands of strangers, then that's what you should do. I will not stand in your way.'

'Jude,' I said, pulling her towards me. 'You've made the happiest man in the mid-five thousand followers.'

And that's why, yesterday, we made the announcement that the show will be ending on Watch. To be honest, it's something of a relief. I won't have to endure constant questions about viewing figures and I will have time to explore new avenues. Watch will miss us more than we will miss Watch and our future is now an open book of our own writing. In Judy's case, it's an erotic novel based around her heroine, the buxom eighteen-century courtesan, Jemima Flirt.

I, on the other hand, will continue to Twitter, continue to update this occasional blog, and continue to explore the vastness of this island Earth, cloaked in the moonlight of opportunity, the heat of circumstance, and the twilight of accomplishment.

Or, as I put it so eloquently in my official statement, 'We will be doing stuff together and stuff apart'. And I hope you will continue to be with me as I do that stuff.

God bless you. God bless Richard & Judy. And God bless all who sail in us.

All Aboard!

I know that, for many of you, it’s hard not to envy me. After all, I’m a man whose glands have been probed by medical science for an answer to that age old riddle: why some of us have hugely successful careers in the media while others are mere Keith Chegwins bobbing along the evolutionary stream that heads towards the tar pit of late night Channel 5. However, as my increasing reluctance to update my blog demonstrates, I’m also a man who has to occasionally keep his glands close to his chest.

Ever since I finished my last book (yet to find a publisher but still destined to be 'the next big thing') I have hesitantly toyed with various ideas. How should the world see Uncle Dick Madeley next? In what guise would he appear unto you? As a novelist? Faith-healer? President? Saviour? In the end, I settled for all four.

My next project will be the biggest yet, involving a few hundred tons of iron and a tight construction schedule in a Belfast dockyard. The Richard & Judy Marine Fleet is my own brainchild. I intend it to help solve many of the world’s problems. Not only will we provide an armed presence off the coast of Somalia, we will help create new trade routes thereby stimulating the world in the depths of recession. What’s more, our floating palaces will become havens for anybody wanting to escape swine flu.

Heading the fleet with be the 150,000 tonne ‘Dicktanic’, in which we hope to carry thousands of our loyal viewers on a six month cruise around the waters of light chat and topical frivolity, with only the occasional tear along the way. I’ll be your captain and my first mate is called Judy, in charge of life rafts, catering, heavy machinery, and the brig.

There are some suggestions that I’m mad. ‘What do you know about cruise liners?’ I’ve heard people say. I reply that I think it’s important for ‘talent’ to take the middle-men out of the business of communicating with an audience. As publishers stand in the way of writers, TV executives stand in the way of talent such as Judy and myself, who should always be in touch with our natural audience. Why take any mountain to an unnamed religious deity when you can bring unnamed religious deities to the mountain? Only, in this case, the unnamed religious deity’s is named Dick and smells faintly of peppermint. You, by the way, are the mountain.

So, that’s where I’ve been. That’s what I’ve been up to. And that’s what I’ll be doing in the near future when I hope to see you all sailing on the Dicktanic. Don’t forget that the evening cabaret starts at eight and we have acts that are only legal in international waters.

From The Pool

Another Chinese SPAM attack today. They seem to be bypassing the word verification, so I've now enabled full comment moderation. Not that I'm allowing it to annoy me. I've enjoyed a day in the pool and will continue to enjoy subsequent days being hot, wrinkled, and sexier than ever. The Chinese will never defeat me so long as I'm smeared in Ambre Solaire body lotion and have Cheggers to distract the summer gnats.

Spammers from China.

You write a blog, take care to craft its words, its pictures. You care about your readers. You try to put the least number of obstacles before them to prevent them reading.

And the minute you turn your back, some individuals (perhaps it’s best if I just refer to them as ‘scum’) deface your blog with hundred (yes hundreds) of spam comments. In Chinese. And what’s even better is that there’s no way to delete all these comments in one or two simple operations. I have to now begin going through every single comment, clicking half a dozen times to get rid of each one.

Thank you.

[I've counted them. 923 comments to be deleted. I might as well just shut this bloody blog... It's not worth the *many* hours it will take me to clean this mess up. Two years of work ruined by people who create nothing but want to make easy money by detroying other people's work. Scum. Absolute scum.]

Piers Morgan's Life Stories

When I agreed to be interviewed by Piers Morgan, I didn’t realise that I’d get the full hour-long treatment. Tonight’s show is as in-depth a profile about the Madeley phenomenon as you could ever hope to see, record to the Sky+ box, burn to recordable DVD, or have tattooed across your belly like some postmodern version of the Bayeux Tapestry. It also marks the beginning of twelve months of celebrations around the country ending, early next year, with the burning of effigies of Richard Hammond (or Madeley-lite, as Judy calls him) and then the unveiling of my statue in Trafalgar Square. My thighs cast twelve feel wide in bronze promise to become a new gathering point for tourists everywhere and, we hope, help stimulate this flagging economy if not your deepest longings as sexual beings.

On tonight’s show I also talk openly about my relationship with Judy, my charity work on behalf of the disappearing Norfolk chipmunk, and my long-standing feud with Jeremy Paxman over the correct pronunciation of the phrase ‘vulcanised rubber’. Piers reveals himself to be a sensitive interviewer and I open up more than I’d wanted to about my personal life, Judy’s screwdriver collection, and the tribulations of being the nation’s most potent example of the male gene.

I’ve seen the final edit of the show and, unfortunately, most of my two and a half-hour rant about Twitter, blogging, and rival internet personalities has been left out. Also missing is the first public announcement of my starring role in Charlie Kaufmann’s reworking of the David Lean classic ‘Brief Encounter’. I had spoken quite eloquently about how excited I am by the script, which transforms Celia Johnson’s role into that of Natasha Kaplinsky’s disembodied head which my character falls in love with as he carries it in a travel suitcase on a publicity trip to Manchester. However, Piers has, perhaps wisely, chosen to leave these moments out of a show which is more of a celebration of my past accomplishments rather than my impending rise to Hollywood, world celebrity, and Godhead.

So, if you want to catch up with the Richard Madeley omnibus, you’d be well advised to tune in tonight. 10PM. ITV. It will make you remember why your TV remote control has a button labelled ‘3’.

Hungarian Goulash

If I’ve been silent these past few weeks, I’ve had good reason. In fact, I’ve had more than one good reason. My lap has been heavy with good reasons, my pockets full to overflowing with good reasons. I’ve even had good reasons coming out of my nostrils, good reasons coming out of my ears. There hasn’t been an orifice that hasn’t been excreting good reasons. And all for a good reason.

‘Richard, I’m worried about you,’ said Mrs. Madeley one morning about a month ago.

‘Me?’ I said, looking up at her standing at the top of her step ladders. Judy was applying a coat of green emulsion in the shape of giant fig leaf to the new mural we’d had painted on the dining room ceiling. The naked figure of a recumbent Jonathan Ross was the product of some misguided artistic licence on behalf of our decorator. The resulting eight feet run of Jonathan’s limp manhood had been far too lifelike for Judy’s tastes and she’s been unable to overcome the feeling that it was going to crush her whenever she sat down for dinner.

Judy’s elbow worked the roller as she spoke. ‘I worry about how you’ll survive on TV once I go down to Cornwall to write my erotic novels based around my heroine, the buxom eighteen-century courtesan, Jemima Flirt.’

‘I’m glad you ask,’ I replied, putting my glass of brandy to one side and folding my newspaper. ‘I’ve been giving some thought to the adventures of Miss Flirt and have come up with some jolly romps that I’d like to run past you. Now close your eyes, Jude... Well, perhaps not close them completely, given you’re atop that ladder, but imagine, if you will, that it’s late in the evening of 1734 and the local poetaster, Sir Clive Jameson, has just finished composing his latest dirty limerick in his rooms, when who should come to his door with a newly cleansed spittoon but the buxom Miss Flirt... “Come hither with my snot bucket, wench!” says he...’

Judy paused, her hand inches from Jonathan’s glossy spheres. ‘You don’t honestly think you’ll be helping me write my books, do you Richard?’ She pointed a fig-leaf-green finger my way. ‘Stop thinking that you can write. You’re staying on TV where your smouldering good looks might still earn us a few quid.’

I breathed a sigh of relief. To be honest, my enthusiasm didn’t lie in erotic novels and never has done. Not only do I find their prose rather flat but I also find that the pages tend to be stuck together wherever the action has hotted up.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘there’s always those wildlife documentaries I’ve always been keen on making...’

‘Wildlife?’ asked Judy, wobbling on her ladder. ‘What kind of wildlife?’
It was the opportunity I’d been waiting for. Rarely does my wife take a real and active interest in my ambitions, so over the course of the next fifteen minutes, I outlined my plans to make a documentary about my second favourite mammal.

‘And that’s why I want to go and be the first man to film the Giant Hungarian Ferret,’ I said in conclusion.

Judy had climbed down from her ladder and was now sitting at the head of the table examining the brochure I’d had professionally printed for occasions such as this. It covered the whole proposal for any potential investor, including the kind of funding I’d need to complete the documentary and the estimated audience who’d enjoy watching it. Judy seemed impressed by the figures. She mumbled a few questions and I did my best to answer them until, eventually, she closed the brochure and looked out at me from beneath a relaxed brow thick with green paint.

‘I think it’s an excellent idea,’ she said.

‘You do?’

‘If it means that you won’t be hanging around the cottage telling me how to write my book, then I’m all for it. In fact, the sooner I get you over to Hungary, the better it will be for all of us.’ And with that she whipped out her chequebook and scribbled out a figure well in excess of the amount I needed to get my project started.

Well, that truly excited me. To have Judy’s support in an endeavour this big: is there any wonder why I haven’t had time to write this blog? Not forty eight hours passed before I had packed my bags and I was meeting a documentary team at Heathrow for the flight to Budapest.

Now, I realise that I should have blogged from my travels through the heart of Hungary. It’s what Fry would recommend, probably dressed in Tweed and Twittering all the way. But I got so caught up in the events that I only had time to jot down a few notes in my diary at the end of each day. Until the documentary is finished, this will have to do. I have withheld most of the geographical details in order to protect the location of the ferrets. I have since returned to Hungary twice but this is the account of my first painful visit. Other episodes might follow depending on how the British public takes to the ferret, which remains one of nature’s greatest wonders, to rank alongside the blue whale, the Yellowstone National Park, the continued popularity of Phillip Schofield among women of a certain age.


Extracts Taken from The Madeley Diary. March 2009.

Wednesday.

We’re in Hungary. Not so keen on the food (I swear the goulash is made from real ghouls, ho ho!) and we’ve already lost our cameraman to one of the local bordellos. The director sent the sound recordist in to bring him back but neither of them have returned. I am now stuck in my hotel room, minding the equipment, while the director goes to bring the two of them back. I wish he hadn’t taken the researcher with him. I’m alone and the hotel owner keeps knocking on my door and making kissing noised through the keyhole. I wouldn’t mind but he’s not a day younger than eighty.

Thursday.

The giant ferret hunt begins! We’ve been told there have been many sightings of the giant ferret in the woods of Eastern Hungary, so that’s where we’ll begin our search. This morning the director, researcher, cameraman, and sound recordist all returned from the bordello looking refreshed by their adventures. I, on the other hand, spent the day irritable after having locked myself in the bathroom all night. The hotel owner returned after midnight with the key to my room and proceeded to spend the next eight hours lying in my bed. I suspect he wanted to make more than kissing noised through my keyhole. Today I still have the impression of a communist-period hot water tap in the small of my back and the ring of a World War 2 plughole pressed into my right buttock. It’s like that scene out of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’. Should you be able to read Russian, you could make a replica of that plug just from the details on my behind.

Friday.

We’re now in Eastern Hungary, close to the border with Romania. Striking camp tonight, we were approached by a local who claimed to know of one of the ancient ferret herders. He has offered to take us to see an old man who apparently has a way with the animals. I asked if the old man is bearded and can communicate with owls. Surprisingly, the answer was yes. I’m excited by the prospect of tracing Bill Oddie’s heritage this far east. I’ve always suspected that there’s a bit of Greek Orthodox in the Oddie mix.

Saturday.

Tonight I saw my first giant ferret! We’d all retired for the night when, around 1AM, I made my usual visit to the bushes. I had scraped a shallow hole in the ground but, unfortunately, the darkness prevented me from seeing some thistles upon which I proceeded to park myself. No sooner had I yelled out in pain when, from the depths of the woods, there was an urgent reply. One or the other scream woke the camp and after I’d explained what had happened, our guide told us that my cry had been identical to the distress call of the giant ferret. The echoed cry of alarm had come from a nearby animal. It was indeed fortunate for the advancement of science and the prospects for our documentary. I tried to repeat the cry but with no luck. Finally, after much persuading and a few threats, I was encouraged to sit on another thistle. My scream was genuine and effected an immediate response from the woods. The hunt was on!

After an hour, we managed to track down the ferret in a clearing about a mile from camp. We saw him for only a fleeting moment before he disappeared into the deeper wood but it was enough for me. This morning I’m sore and somewhat red and irritated down below but I am happy to have seen such a rare and magnificent beast.

I am about to have more ointment applied by the sound recordist who has the longest fingers in the team. Those thistles dig deep.

Sunday.

We met our ferret herder and told him about our experiences of the previous day. He seemed impressed and had a novel cure for those parts of mine which have become greatly swollen. You might well laugh but he has smeared goulash over my wounds! The soothing is remarkable but there’ll be no more calling ferrets for me, I’m afraid! Luckily, the old herder showed me how to make a similar noise with the horn of the native Hungarian yak. (Our herder does bear a striking resemblance to Bill Oddie, though when I pressed him on the subject, he became somewhat reluctant to talk about it.)


Monday

What a day! Thanks to the herder, I rode my first wild ferret! I’m still sore and all that bouncing on the ferret’s back did little to help my swelling but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Beat that, Stephen Fry! I rode a ferret or, as they say here in Hungary, the ferret rode me. They are easier to ride than horses but far more skittish. Thankfully, I’ve spend years handling Judy’s miniature show ponies so I knew the ropes. The seemed drawn to me and I suspect it’s because I was rich with the smell of goulash. I think the old ferret herder knew what he was doing when he smeared me with that stuff. (The herder’s name, Billish Oddeski, furthers my suspicions and I must look into this on a later visit.)

Tuesday

We’re back in Budapest. Sad to be going home in the morning, despite the old hotel keeper already having been back to my keyhole twice this evening. I will leave with many good memories and some BAFTA award winning footage in the can. There’s even some footage of me in the can, though I doubt if it would be BAFTA award winning. Or who knows? If Alan Carr can be nominated, I’m certain there’s room for a man with goulash smeared around his privates. I’m just excited that the first part of filming is over. I rang Judy and she says that the BBC are already sniffing around the project. Again, I suspect that the goulash has something to do with it but it bodes well for the future of this project.

When I do come back, I think I’ll choose a different hotel.

Coming Next Year to ITV...

The Fry-Day Fallout

My brain had not loosened up from my two days in a Manchester studio but waking in my bed this morning, it was so reassuring to smell a fried breakfast. Delirious was my happiness as I rolled over and found Judy lying beside me, the morning paper in one hand, some kipper in the other.

‘I always think of home when I smell kipper,’ I said, moving the bottle of HP sauce my wife had wedged for safety between my buttocks. ‘Ah, Judy! It’s so good to be back in familiar surroundings... You’ve got tomato sauce on your chin, love.’

Judy did her duty by the errant sauce and then nodded to her newspaper. ‘You made a proper fool of yourself yesterday,’ she said. ‘What on earth were you thinking?’
She handed me the newspaper, a local rag distributed only in our undisclosed area of North London. ‘Madeley’s Record Attempt Humiliation!’ read the banner headline.

I sank back into my pillow and groaned. ‘It was a brave attempt,’ I protested, ‘but the world of Twitter hasn’t quite taken to my own particular form of genius. Up to about midday I was roaring away. People thought I really was Stephen Fry and my following was soaring. Then at some point, I began to feel hungry. It reminded me than I’m a man, not a deity. My self-confidence crumbled and instead of the pithy one-liners of a God, I was just a man insulting people and making gratuitous remarks about bodily parts.’ I frowned. ‘It was not hubris, Jude. Hubris! And it was far from pretty...’

Judy wiped the kipper grease from her mouth and turned her attention to her eggs, which she scooped up and polished off in a couple of moves. She was clearly choosing her words carefully and I had to wait until she’d had gulped down a lashing of hot coffee before she spoke.

‘Richard, I don’t know why you bother with the internet. Your blog is doing nothing for your career and Twitter is as pointless an interest as you’ve ever had. You need to do something to help promote yourself among the people that matter.’

‘My blog is doing nothing for me?’ I had to laugh. ‘Only through my blog do people see me for what I am: a witty, articulate man who is capable of a myriad of TV and radio assignments. My career is going to go stellar before long, Jude! I came close to landing that job on Countdown and you know how I’m going to apply for a job on Soccer AM at the end of the football season. Helen Chamberlain has a something, Judy. I’m telling you that my chemistry could work with hers.’

Judy scowled. ‘I’m sure it would, Richard,’ she said, squeezing her morning banger between a round of toast. ‘And all I’m saying is that before you start trying to impersonate Stephen Fry on Twitter, you might think about the consequences. Stephen has a loyal fans.’

I hummed myself a indignant hum. ‘Or, as I like to think of them: acolytes, zealots, or old fashioned obsessivers knitting Stephen Fry balaclavas. I was lucky to get away with my trousers and just a few bruises. I don’t know how Stephen can countenance such behaviour.’

‘The problem with Stephen is that he’s too busy swimming with sealions to think about the feelings of one of his oldest friends,’ said Judy.

I couldn’t disagree with her so I slid back under the sheets and closed my eyes. It felt so good to be home, in my own bed, with my wife lying beside me as she slid the bottle of sauce back between my cheeks where it would keep warm as I slept another couple of hours.

Ladies and Gentlemen...

Gone With The Pigeons

Totally incapable of blogging today. I was up with the larks. Or is it crows? Could well be pigeons, the number of the damn things sitting on the house this morning. Bad omens indeed; or at least it was for the state of our double glazing. Thankfully, I won’t be around when Judy gets the ladders out later this morning and shinnies up them to Mr. Sheen the glass.

I’m away from home for a couple of days, in the great city of Manchester where I’m doing some voiceover work on an exciting new TV series that charts the fortunes of Bolivia’s nose flutists. ‘Richard Madeley and the Bolivian Nose Flutists’ (provisional title) should go out on ITV in the Autumn. I’m also taking this time to shut myself away in my hotel room and get some writing done. The novel is coming well, thank you, those of you who’ve been asking. I’ve managed to get past the difficult part where my hero, Rex Spanner, was stuck in the regimental barracks of the Iranian National Guard with only half a lemon and quart of baby oil. Things are now building to a pleasing climax.

All of which means, if I fall silent, at least you’ll know where to find me.
Room 721. Knock three times and whisper ‘Uncle Dick’ three times through the keyhole.

Uncle Dick’s Guide to Becoming A Good Twitterer And Making Your Life Complete

People have started to come up to me on the street and ask me about Twitter. Just like that. As bold as the brass stuff and without any consideration for Judy, who as you know, is allergic to strangers, dogs, and the colour yellow.

To solve the problem, I thought I’d write down an introduction to Twitter which I can print out and thrust into the faces of anybody who approaches me with a Tweet glinting in their eye. I call it ‘Uncle Dick’s Guide to Becoming A Good Twitterer And Making Your Life Complete’. It doesn’t promise you the earth, but it does promise to make you a better person.

1. Create your account at www.twitter.com

2. Immediately follow @stephenfry. I can’t stress this enough. If you Twitter, you must follow @stephenfry. You will immediately discover that he’s off in some remote part of the world, examining the underside of some rare form of parrot. This will make you unhappy with your life at the office/bakery/school/home. Congratulations! You’ve achieved your first feeling of self-loathing. You’re a real Twitterer!

3. Immediately follow @wossy. Although not quite as important as rule number 2, it is still required by UK law that you follow @wossy. Not only will you be entertained with stories of his celebrity friends dropping by (that Ricky Gervais... What a card!), you’ll learn more about Japanese manga and the lifestyles of adults who collect toys. This is better than spending a mornings hanging around Toys R Us. And since hanging around Toys R Us is not recommended, @wossy fills a void in all our lives.

4. You should next try to follow as many celebrities as possible starting with your favourite Uncle Dick. Following celebrities is the reason that Twitter exists. It’s the reason you live. The reason you have children is so that they can follow celebrities. Celebrities bring meaning to your lives and you should not ignore them. It is astonishing how even minor celebrities can bring so much peace and happiness. There’s no feeling as great as learning that Phillip Schofield spent the morning waiting to have new carpets fitted in his billiards room or that Richard Bacon collects used postage. Want to know that Maggie Philbin’s toaster’s gone on the fritz? Then Twitter is the place for you.

5. If you want to be a success on Twitter, you might have to adopt some radical – if not downright unhealthy – practices. You might have to follow ‘normal’ people.

6.

7. I left a space to let you regain your composure. I know it was a shock and it’s not something you want to think about when you’ve just eaten. But you should quickly follow as many ‘normal’ people as you can. Bite your lip and go click crazy. Get it over with because being ‘followed’ is the measure of your success on Twitter. Celebrities will not follow you (and, let’s face it, why should they?). You have to make up for this by following people you might normally cross the street to avoid.

8. You will quickly realise that it’s bloody hard to get followed unless you’re a celebrity name. You will have the urge to quit but you must fight this urge. If you persevere, you will get followers. You might even be up to 20 within a few months.

9. Listen to your Uncle Dick: follow everybody who is good enough to follow you. But if they stop following you, then you should cull them without mercy. Unfollow them with extreme prejudice. Unfollow them with a vengeance.

10. When writing ‘tweets’ (Twitter messages are called ‘tweets’ after Stephen Fry’s pet canary), you should avoid posting anything of interest. You will quickly establish a pattern of posting the same thing, day after day. Some of the most popular forms of Tweet are listed below.

11. Take a picture of your lunch and post a picture of that. People don’t know what food looks like. They’ve rarely come into contact with a meal.

12. Another popular tweet is to complain about how many tax forms you’ve had to fill out and how many more tax forms your looking forward to zzzzzzzzzzz...

13. Sorry. Where was I? Oh, yes. Popular tweets.

14. Tweet news which people will have already learned about from other sources. If possible, alter the facts very slightly. E.g. Original: Britney Spears today gave birth to a baby boy called Sam. Your version: Britney Spears today gave birth to a two headed dragon she has named Raglock the Destroyer.

15. Tweet about other tweeters. My advice is hurl as much abuse around as you can. It livens things up, keeps things fresh.

16. One of the most popular form of tweeting is that of the celebrity verifiers. These people form loose associations known as ‘rabbles’ and ‘mobs’, who scour the Twitterverse for people pretending to be celebrities. When they find them, they hack at them with their pitchforks and then burn down their houses. They then salt the land so nothing will grow there for a thousand years... Their actions save all of us the indignity of following a fake Russell Grant when we should be following the real thing. You should therefore join a mob immediately after complying with rule number 3. Remember, in the Twitterverse, you’re nobody if you’re not in a mob.

17. The final rule of Twitter is to leap off when the next great social networking innovation comes along. To be honest, you’ll probably find that 140 characters take a little too much effort. In the coming months, Judy and I hope to launch our own Gruntverse, where you’ll be able to follow the grunts, sighs, and assorted gasps of celebrities. Want to hear Hugh Grant go ‘arrrrrrr’ three times a day? Well, watch this space. Gruntverse will be here soon.

18. Trust your Uncle Dick. It’s the next big thing.

Pancakes

I'll be very busy today so I suggest you go make pancakes.

Well, Listen To My Story About A Man Named Dick

I’m constantly at the mercy of people demanding to know how I do it.

‘Richard,’ they’ll say, ‘how did you manage to update your blog last night when satellite images prove that you were busy in the Lakes helping stricken motorists push their cars to the side of the road?’

‘Richard, how did you manage to Twitter today when Sky News said that you were in a clinic having your nostrils scraped?’

‘Richard, you couldn’t possibly have blogged a week last Sunday when there was a picture of you in Hello Magazine that showed the clock on your kitchen wall to be the same time as when you posted your piece about David Dickinson’s spa.’

And so it goes...

‘Richard, there’s a definitely incongruity between your blogging activities and the membership records of your health club where you were definitely receiving a Korean ear massage at the time you claimed to be making a tapioca pudding with Bill Oddie.’

Despite this, I’m also asked to update my blog more and people often demand that I spend more time Twittering to them.

‘Richard, where are you today, love?’ will come the echoing cry through the corridors of cyberspace. ‘Coo eee! Richard? Are you in today? Where’s your witty banter?’

I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t. And to be perfectly honest: my blog earns me no income and takes a good amount of effort and time to write. I have other projects which demand my attention. There are my many novels that need finishing, scripts that need polishing, as well as the banjo lessons I’ve taken up.

Yes, that’s right. You heard me correctly. I said ‘banjo lessons’.

It was Judy’s idea, nearly two months ago now. We’ve often talked about my love of music but my inability to play any instrument but it was listening to the Verdi’s Requiem played on the trombone that was the genesis of the whole affair.

‘I really do admire the way you’ve put your heart and soul into the trombone, Jude,’ I said to her one night. She was in the process of packing her instrument away for evening after her usual ritual of calming herself down before sleep by playing the trombone in bed. I’d been sitting by her, trying to get through Dostoyevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’ – a novel that thwarts me even when I’m not distracted by the delicate strains of the Requiem filling the spacious Madeley boudoir.

‘There’s nothing to stop you from learning to play an instrument,’ replied Judy, emptying out her spit valve into the bucket she keeps next to the bed. ‘God knows but you’ve got enough time.’

I closed my book. It seems that the damn thing was never going to get cheerful and I wanted to consider Judy’s suggestion.

‘You promise you won’t laugh,’ I said.

‘Laugh? What at?’

‘What I’m about to tell you.’

Judy laughed. ‘What is it?’

‘I’ve always wanted to play the banjo. You know... Like they do at the beginning of The Beverley Hillbillies.’

Judy laughed again. I shrank down into my pillow. ‘Well, if that’s what you want, Richard,’ she said, turning over and turning out the light. She fell asleep chucking to herself, occasionally muttering about ‘Texas gold’.

The seed was sewn. It was about a week later that I was attending a bash in honour of some fairly forgettable cause when I bumped into an old friend I hadn’t spoken to in a long time. Dame Maggie Smith and I go back years; in fact, back to when I first trod the boards and played Laertes to her Gertrude in Ken Dodd’s one and only performance as Hamlet.

‘Maggie!’ I cried, going over to plant a wet one on her cheek. ‘You’re looking well.’

‘Well, Dick, I’m keeping busy,’ said Maggie. ‘You know what they say about an active mind.’

‘Indeed I do,’ I said. ‘I keep myself busy on my blog.’

‘Hmmm,’ she replied. ‘Do you ever think of doing something more productive with your time? I always thought it was sad that you gave up acting.’

‘One has to specialise at some point,’ I said.

‘Well,’ said Maggie, ‘it’s still not too late. You might have refused the world your Hamlet but we might still get to see one of the great Lears.’

I frowned. Maggie’s a dear and that kind of talk is a bit below the belt. I still think I could carry of a Hamlet, or one of the young lovers in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. To talk of King Lear was... Well, I could see that Hollywood had changed her.

‘To be honest, Maggie,’ I said, ‘I have been thinking of taking up an instrument. I want to be more musical as I approach my middle age.’

‘Middle age!’ she laughed. Then her face straightened. ‘What instrument were you thinking of, Dicky dear?’

‘The banjo.’

Well, if I’d said that I was making a return to the stage playing the back end of a pantomime cow, the effect on Maggie’s face wouldn’t have been as strong.

‘The banjo!’ she cried. ‘Dicky, Dicky, Dicky! My dear boy! I play the banjo!’

‘You do?’

‘I’ve been playing the banjo for nearly fifteen years.’

‘How amazing,’ I said. ‘Well perhaps you can give me some advice. I wouldn’t know how to go and buy a banjo...’

She tutted and placed her hand on my arm. ‘Dicky, for you, I’ll give you a banjo. I have dozens.’

I was moved. So moved that I probably donated so much to the quite forgettable cause that I had to hide the bank statement from Jude at the end of the month.
True to her word, not twenty four hours passed before a taxi arrived at my door and Dame Maggie Smith brought me a banjo.

Judy is over the moon, of course. Mr. Shawcross my new banjo teacher comes around once a week. He says that I have a knack because of my natural clawhammer. Judy has even started to call me The Claw, though my repertoire is limited. But I have mastered the classic bluegrass tune, ‘Dipple Doo Me Chicken Hoo’ and Judy has the trombone version coming via mail order any day now. I can’t see us performing it live for some time but who knows... It all depends if I can get the practice. And if people give me chance to be myself beyond my blog.

Friday Notes on Monty, Monkfish and Twitter

I’ve been limbering up my tonsils for my next stint on the radio. LBC have asked me to provide cover for one of their presenters this weekend and I thought it would be another chance to quietly spread the message that Dick Madeley is a one-man show. You already know that I’m witty, urbane, and knowledgeable, but what I hope will be conveyed this weekend is that I’m also an expert on the subject of monkfish. With monkfish slowly slipping from the news agenda but the future of the species still in doubt, I’d be sorely disappointed if the show doesn’t get two dozen calls asking me to talk about my favourite fish.

However, before I can get around to preparing monkfish facts for the show, I have to deal with a problem that has arisen on Twitter. As you know, I’m something of a Twitter legend. Uncle Dick, as people have fondly started to call me, provides daily horoscopes for the Twitterers, as well as leading them in the occasional sing-a-long. Two Fridays ago, the nation’s offices were alive to the sound of ‘Bring Me Sunshine’, led be me but accompanied by Judy on the trombone. I have also entertained people with debates about the best nun films and I’ve taken to a bee costume to highlight the crisis in the honey industry. I like to think of myself as the entertaining alternative to so many dull celebrities who do nothing but wallow in their own self importance. Where most celebrities follow a few ‘normals’, as they might say, I will follow anybody who follows me. Equality in all things, is my battle cry! I want to learn about people’s lives and take great interest in following their daily routines. I am, above all things, a people’s person. (Just don’t try to turn up on my doorstep. I’ll prosecute you to within an inch of your life.)

Now I hope to expand my role on Twitter by launching a new service: The Uncle Dick Madeley Celebrity Validation Service. There are, of course, others out there attempting to do the same thing but few of them have my connections nor my iron fist wrapped in a polyester glove. If I need to discover if Ronnie Corbett is really Twittering, I need only look over the back fence. If there’s a question over Jonathan Ross’s current location, I need only shimmy up the lamppost that sits outside his royal estate. There aren’t many people who can say the same.

What will distinguish my service from the rest is that I’m setting up my own hard line validation service with a paramilitary wing. I'll be adopting the same tactics that Field Marshall Montgomery used to rout the German's from North Africa. We’ll actively hunt down fake Twitterers and mete out a spectacular forms of justice. So, if you’re currently pretending to be Benjamin Netanyahu on Twitter, you should be aware that Judy could come abseiling through your window armed with a bucket of cold rice pudding. If you’re in some dingy bedsit pretending to be Lionel Richie, don’t be surprised if you suddenly see your wallpaper come alive. It’s only Judy in her camouflage coming at you with a pair of nostril tweezers.

No doubt I’ll talk about our operations at more length in the future. For the moment, I must go and give my tonsils a bloody good scrub ahead of a busy weekend. I only ask that you remember your line: ‘I wonder if Richard would be interested in talking about the plight of the North Atlantic monkfish.’

‘Bless you’, I’ll say. ‘Of course I would.’ You can then just leave the rest to me.

Regret and Wonder: Dick Madeley At The Brits

My wearing an Elvis costume to the Brits had been Judy’s idea and was intended as a homage to the music industry from two of TV’s leading lights. Naturally, I threw myself into the part with my usual grievous enthusiasm. When I looked at myself in the bedroom mirror yesterday afternoon, I knew I was ‘all there’ as the King of Rock and Roll.

‘But I’ll never walk in these shoes,’ I said as I swivelled my hips a couple of times and hit that characteristic Elvis pose, outstretched arms and right knee triangulating perfectly on my groin.

My wife, in full Brenda Lee costume, knelt down and poked the toes of my blue suede shoes.

‘They are a bit tight,’ she admitted. ‘But they go so well with the costume.’ Her bottom lip peeped out a little to produce a look of mild petulance. ‘But I didn’t spend eight hours sewing those sequins on your cape for you not to wear your costume.’

‘The cape’s fine,’ I said, as I twisted around. ‘Uncle Dick Elvis’ glistened warmly in the winter sun. I swivelled a couple more times and reached a decision on the shoes. ‘No,’ I said, kicking them into the corner of the room. ‘If I’m going to the Brits, I’m going in something warm and comfortable.’

Judy scowled. ‘You mean your slippers, don’t you?’

I shrugged as I grabbed the box from the wardrobe. ‘It can get cold at Earls Court,’ I explained. ‘I need something to keep my feet warm. People won’t notice and if anybody asks, we can always say that Elvis sometimes wore slippers.’

‘But not brown tartan,’ muttered Judy.

That was a bit of an understatement and didn’t do justice to my slippers. My best dress slippers are one of a kind. They’re actually brown tartan with a fleecy lining that spills over to form a warm if unattractive ruff collar. With orthopaedic bunion cushions and a non-slip heel, they are the most comfortable footwear you can buy. They even do a model you can plug into your stairlift to keep your feet toasty as you travel between floors. Being only thirty eight years old, I know that I’m a bit young for this kind of footwear but I’m also of that cast of mind that firmly believes that comfort comes before style. I will not be controlled by these arbitrary cultural whims about what kind of shoes a handsome man can wear at rock and pop awards.

Not that the crowd seemed to care later last night when I stepped out of the limo. The journo’s flashbulbs went into overload as the baying fans screamed, waved, bared their breasts, and bombarded us with underwear. Judy took a g-string right across the face and I had to support her until we got under cover.

‘That was unique and strangely aromatic,’ I said as I brushed a large yellowing girdle from my shoulder. Judy regained her composure quickly and rolled up her sleeves intending to go back and throw some underwear of her own. It took me and two armed security guards to calm her down. Many lives were saved in the process.

Finally, we were led into the arena, which, for those of you who haven’t experience the celebrity lifestyle, is an artificial reality. The whole place is a rabbit run of special A list lanes surrounded by security guards holding back the sea of what we like to call ‘the norms’. Our seats were closer to the stage than most, within two kilometres of the actual performers. Between our table and stage were only a few thousand executives from music labels and, right at the front, a thin veneer of screaming girls they bus in for the cameras. They’ve been specially trained to look both gormless and promiscuous but they’ve all been neutered and have a special anti-rock star coating. Try to mate with one of them and your averaged guitarist would slide right off leaving only a tattooed trail behind.

After the g-string incident, Judy was in a petulant mood as she sat down. She immediate called for champagne as I made my way around to greet a few of the other guests and to occasionally pose with my cape unfurled. On my way back from shaking hands with Chris Tarrant, Billy Piper, Rick Stein, and others in the A list, I spotted a face I recognised from the newspapers.

‘Like my cape, Russell?’ I asked, turning to give Brand a look at Judy’s sequin work.

‘Ow,’ he wailed, brushing a few strands of stray noodle from his heavily made up face. ‘Richard! It irradiates my left ventricular to see you amongst us, so it does, it does! Pritthee? Where be the fair Jude, she of the magnificently loquacious bonnet?’

‘Pardon?’ I asked.

He smiled and looked at the nubile blondes sitting along his lap. ‘The man does not speaketh the Queen English,’ he said to them. Some giggled, a few roared. I wondered how so many free spirits could balance on one man’s knee.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘I only came over to say hello.’

‘Ah, the monkey talks!’ cried Russell. ‘Well, indeed, indeed... Perambulate yonderwards and beseech me no more with thy inscrutable requests. I am only here for the grape and will soon to be whisked by helichopper to Plymouth where I have acolytes to entertain and maidens to woo with my ribald speech, vulgar jokes, and my tongue of a thousand sinuous ways.’

‘Bugger this,’ I mumbled as I headed back to Judy. Her mood had improved on discovering Cilla Black at the next table. The two of them were entertaining each other by lobbing cheese nibbles at Samantha Fox, sitting two rows back.

The rest of the evening passed how Brit awards usually pass: in an alcoholic haze, full of regret and wonder. There was much bowing and tugging of forelocks as Russell Brand departed for his Plymouth gig. He left us to drink ourselves into oblivion and enjoy a feeble night’s entertainment. The presenters were no funnier at a range of two kilometres than a live hand grenade going off at two feet; the performances ranged from the excellent ‘Kings of Leon’ to the truly awful spectacle of ‘Take That’ being lowered into the audience on a large heavy testicle, adorned with Christmas lights, as they mimed to some godawful electronically manipulated pap. The Ting Tings brought some much needed attitude to the proceedings and did well despite Estelle’s widely out-of-tune wailing. Not once did the cameras swing our way and, this morning, I see that my cape has been ignored by the media who are concentrating their adoration on Duffy. The people I had hoped to see win left with nothing. Neil Diamond’s best album in years was ignored in favour of Kanye West, who, frankly, sounds more like a district of Florida levelled by a hurricane. Seasick Steve was another big loser, having produced one of the most heartfelt albums revealing a true and significant talent. But isn’t that the way with true and significant talent?

I got home and hung up my cape, realising that sometimes talent doesn’t count for very much in these days dominated by PR and spin. It’s about what sells and if those empty headed teenagers on the front row want baubles to distract them, real music artistry will always struggle to get noticed. The award to ‘Elbow’ aside, the evening was a tribute to the passing whims of an indifferent generation; a narcissist’s dream where vanity, pomposity, and vulgarity ride roughshod over a work ethic, humility and pride. All of which reminded me why I’m in TV and not music journalism. It’s just not suited to men in brown tartan slippers and Elvis Presley capes.

On Bees

I hope you’ll forgive me if today I’m not quite ‘on form’. Last night, my sinuses flared. Left became right, up was down, and the spinning room became my new normality. The only stable thing has been Judy’s patience as she helps nurse me and get my passages flowing again.

I will say, however, that this sudden illness has given me chance to reflect on life and the hours I have to spend in dusty TV studios. I was lying in bed at nine o’clock this morning, a pack of hot oven-ready chips nestled against my aching brow, when it occurred to me that I could avoid these trivial complaints if I made just a few changes to my lifestyle.

‘Judy?’ I said.

She was busy preparing a bicycle pump fitted with twin nostril valves filled with Olbas Oil for immediate nasal relief.

‘Judy? Do you think we should get out of the city?’

‘Hmm,’ she said as she worked her elbow limber, ready for the all important hour of pumping. ‘You know my opinion on that. I’m going off to Cornwall to write erotic novels based around my heroine, the buxom eighteen-century courtesan, Jemima Flirt. You’re going to establish yourself as a star in your own right.’

‘But what do you think about Wales?’ I asked.

‘Wales?’

‘Well, it occurred to me that we could go to Wales and do something together in the fresh air. You know... Like keep bees. I’ve always wanted to do my bit to save the British bumble bee.’

She lowered the pump from my nose.

‘You want us to move to Wales to keep bumble bees?’

‘I thought it would be a pleasant way to enjoy your retirement. Of course, since I’m only thirty eight, I’ll have to carry on with my career. But I could commute to London each day.’

‘From Wales?’

‘I’d buy a helicopter. And I’d paint it yellow and black to honour the bees.’
She raised the pump. ‘I had my heart set on Cornwall.’

Well, I was no condition to argue. With two valves up my nose, I just lay back and hoped that the aching would ease and I would regain my equilibrium. Sinusitis is a strange condition, almost affecting the mind as much as the body. I’m prone to blockages around the inner ear, which I often attribute to my slightly skewed outlook. When you can’t be sure of a true horizon, the rest of the world takes on a different attitude. In fact, I would attribute most of success in life down to blocked passages and the transcendental quality of my catarrh.

After Judy had finished, I was naturally feeling a little dizzy. She climbed off my chest and began to dismantle the hand pump.

‘The thing about Wales,’ I continued, ‘is that we could establish an independent source of income. Richard&Judy’s Organic Honey would take the market by storm. And it’s not as though it would take up much of your time. You’d have plenty of time to write Jemima Flirt’s latest blockbuster.’

My dear wife sighed. Or I think she did. It could have been some sudden decompression of my right inner ear which had been whistling all morning. ‘Look, Richard,’ she said. ‘If you want to keep bees, you can keep bees in Cornwall.’

I fell silent. How could I tell her about the close encounter I had as a child with the rare Cornish killer bee? I could never keep bees in Cornwall. I could never trust them.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘it was just an idea... But what do you think about goats?’

‘Goats?’

‘Richard&Judy’s Organic Goat’s Cheese. It wouldn’t take you long to milk them in the morning. And then you could get back to Jemima Flirt. I’m should imagine, Jude, that handing goat udders all morning would put you in the mood for writing erotic fiction. I know it would work for me...’

‘Come on,’ said Judy, now just a little disgusted as she fitted the twelve inch attachment to the foot pump she’d brought in from the shed. ‘Let’s cut out this nonsense. Roll over so I can finish cleaning your tubes.’

Which, as a totally devoted husband, I did. Though, I confess, it did very little to ease the congestion in my head. The world is still spinning.

Read My Peas

It has always been my wife’s biggest fear that success of any kind would go to my head. This explains the look of disgust that Judy gave me as she closed the newspaper and looked up at all the mashed potato balanced above my immaculate and crease-free brow.

‘Don’t you think it’s a bit much?’ she asked.

I moved myself a slightly more casual angle, hoping to soften the effect of the potato which I’d sculpted into the shape of a hat with the words ‘top blogger’ inscribed in peas. Only Judy wasn’t quite seeing the point of my new mash sombrero.

‘You have an ego bigger than Herefordshire,’ she said, heading over to the fridge where she recovered a bottle of plonk. ‘I’d have thought you’d have been satisfied with being one of the sexiest men on TV, a veritable living god among presenters, without taking this kind of praise to heart.’

‘Ah,’ I said, wiping aside some errant punctuation that had slid to my eyebrow, ‘this is success independent of my work with you, Jude. I might have become a publishing sensation with my book, “Fathers & Sons”, but that’s now so heavily discounted that they’re giving them away with every bottle of Ambre Solaire. But this is my blog. This is my life’s work! This is my attempt to prove to the world that Richard Algernon Madeley is a cut above the normal TV fare. This is a demonstration that my talent is more than skin deep and that those of us lucky enough to call ourselves “celebrity” are really something quite special.’

Judy wiped the neck of the bottle before she sank a mouthful.

‘So you’re still plan to go ahead with your little exhibition?’ she asked but the look had softened in her eyes. I knew it was the closest she would come to giving me her blessing.

It was enough for me. I stood up and grabbed the walking cane that Stephen Fry had presented to me on my thirty seventh birthday last year and I walked to the door where I gave my evening suit a final brush down, my tails a flick, before I headed out.

‘Have fun!’ said Judy, mildly scolding but proud, nevertheless.

For a Monday morning, the road in this undisclosed part of North London was surprisingly busy. I’d forgotten that it’s the school holidays so, when I began to walk up the street, a line of children were soon trailing behind me. Some were only there to pick up the odd pea. Others clearly had high hopes of getting a taste of some Smash. But a few cheered me along, applauding me as I strolled with my head held high.

‘Ah!’ said Michael Palin as I found him unloading exotic foodstuffs from his car. ‘Lovely day, isn’t it Dick?’

I pointed to my hat, careful not to tip it.

‘The Sunday Times? Jolly well done!’

I smiled as I passed along.

I had almost walked past Jeremy Paxman’s house before I noticed him. He was up a ladder and cleaning out his gutters.

‘See my show last night?’ he cried. ‘I explored Victorian sewers.’

I couldn’t look up. ‘Very good,’ I replied and then pointed to my hat.

Jeremy’s getting on a bit and his eyesight isn’t what it was. ‘Oh,’ he snarled. ‘Top dogger! Well I suppose congratulations are in order.’

I hadn’t time to waste explaining. My mash was beginning to run and I had only a few minutes to achieve my intended goal.

At the Dickinson residence, I could tell that people were home by the glow of a slightly irradiated light coming from the upper bedroom window.

‘Oy! Dickinson!’ I cried.

There was a movement of curtains and then the naked torso of TV’s top antique appeared, black goggles sitting in the recessed pits of his eyes.

‘Get a load of this, Duck,’ I cried.

‘Pah! Bloody hell, Madeley,’ replied David ‘The Duck’ Dickinson. ‘You’ve got nothing better do with your bloody time?’

I pointed to the peas.

Even in his tanning goggles, David’s eyesight is still as sharp as it was when he was a seventy year old. He nodded. ‘That bloody sums you up, Madeley,’ he said. ‘A “loo logger”.’ And with that, he shut the window.

I was crestfallen. I gazed at my reflection in the windscreen of Dickinson’s bright orange Bentley and I could see that I was far too late. Peas had slipped and the effect of my mash coronet was ruined. ‘Top blogger’ had become ‘loo logger’ and was already on its way to ‘lo goer’. Judy was right. Pride does come before a fall. Humiliation is but a slipped pea away.

Trombones and Hot Tubs

It was last Sunday evening and in the heat of a passionate trombone recital, Judy was splendidly radiant. Her cheeks were twin meltdowns, hot spots of densely packed atoms beyond which many atmospheres of pressure were being forced through the mouthpiece to produce the most wonderful brass version of Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’.

Brrrrp... brrrp... brrr... brrr... brrrrp... brrrrp... went that familiar melody but, for me, a man in the middle of his winter blues, it was more than an enticing charm; it was a promise of spring mornings and dry days when I’ll be able to go jogging around the neighbourhood in my Lycra shorts and no court orders keeping me two hundred metres from David Dickinson’s solarium. Others clearly felt the same way. I looked around the church hall and saw many of our friends and neighbours spellbound by this great rarity: Judy playing her trombone for a paying public. I was captivated by the music and my wife’s talents, and I suppose it was a pang of pride that made me tear up at the end and miss the arrival of the lumbering giant at my side.

‘That was ****ing awesome,’ said Vinne Jones who had made a surprise appearance at the event and an even more unexpected appearance inches from my face.

‘Well, thank you,’ I said.

‘Not heard a ****ing noise like that since I ****ing stuck my ****ing studs into Robbie Fowler’s j*****w.’

‘Right,’ I replied, looking around for somebody large to hide behind. I don’t know about you but I tend to feel uncomfortable hearing that word used in polite company.

‘Listen,’ said Vinne, ‘you ever need somebody to stuck his ****ing studs into somebody’s j*****w, you just give me a call, yea?’ And with that he slid his business card into my upper breast pocket.

‘I’ll do just that,’ I promised.

‘Chipper!’ said Vinnie and slapped me playfully across the jaw.

I was still trying to work a detached retina back into place when Judy came down from the stage. Her lips were slightly puffed and numb from an hour of strenuous blowing.

‘Shoo wash thasht,’ she said.

‘Vinnie Jones,’ I whispered. ‘He was offering to stand on the j*****w of any man who incurs our displeasure.’

Judy blushed at the word, which I don’t think I have ever before uttered in the presence of my wife.

‘Wash a lovelsh geshshshure,’ she replied, though clearly a little disturbed by what she had heard.

‘That’s the beauty of being a celebrity,’ I said, trying to lighten the mood. ‘Good people are always willing to go out of their way to please us with kind offers.’

I thought no more about this kind offer until Wednesday, a momentous day in the Madeley home. It was the day that I was to have my new spa delivered.

As you all probably know, I’ve always been a man who takes his ‘wellness’ seriously. The spa was a newer luxury model with extra spouts installed across the base to provide a more vigorous flow of water across the user’s posterior quarter. The makers say that the force of water alone can keep an eighteen stone man buoyant and I was eager to test their claims in a pair of specially adapted swimming trunks which I’d rigged to carry extra ballast in a reinforced gusset.

After a couple of hours, the installation engineers came out of my shed (I call it a shed but it’s really a large complex outside the main house where I spend most of my time) to declare that the installation was complete. I quickly grabbed my shorts and a large bag of lead pellets and headed out to give it a trial run.

‘Don’t soak too long,’ shouted Judy from the kitchen. ‘You know how your j*****w turn in cold water...’

Since she’d heard me say that word, she had grown an unfortunate habit of using it. I suppose I should have said something about it but I was too excited to answer. Instead, I ran for my first look at my new spa.

Five minutes later, I was sitting in the large tub (big enough for eight healthy men, if you’re into that sort of thing – and I’m not), waist high in nicely warmed water and with a gentle stream of bubbles ticking the inside of my thighs. It was but the beginning. I had the remote control in my hand and I slowly moved the dial from ‘1’ up to ‘2’ and then beyond.

Soon the water was rushing past at a vigorous ‘6’ and I could feel that I was about to lift off. With great anticipation, I moved the dial to ‘7’ and...

Nothing.

‘7’ felt exactly the same as ‘6’. I turned it to ‘8’ and then ‘9’ and still nothing, no noticeable increase in the water’s force and no sign that my buttocks were about to lift off from the bottom of the spa.

Two minutes later, I was on the phone to the installation engineers.

‘Oh, we’re aware of your flow problem,’ they said. ‘In fact, we’re looking into it at this very moment.’

‘Then why didn’t you mention it earlier, before I stripped off?’ I asked.

‘Well, we didn’t want to disappoint you,’ they said.

‘Disappoint me? I’ve bought a top of the line spa and I expect top of the line performance. I don’t want to be left to discover that my water disappoints me at a mildly vigorous “6”. At the very least, I want my every cavity cleansed by a forceful “10”.’

‘We’ll look into it,’ they promised.

An hour later, I was in my dressing gown and sitting in the kitchen when the phone rang.

‘Bad news, Mr. M.,’ they said. ‘It’s an issue of water pressure. Normally, a house such as yours in a well supplied area will have enough pressure to run a spa at its optimum setting. However, in this case, you have a slight problem. It seems that one of your neighbours is using too much water. The pressure of the local water main has dropped by the time it reaches your house.’

‘And do you know who is doing this?’ I asked.

‘We’re looking into it at the moment,’ they said. ‘We’ll ring back when we have news.’

Another hour passes, by which time my j*****w are dry and I’m back into my civilian clothes, sitting in the living room where I’m giving my Scrabble pieces a polish before the big weekend match with Stephen Fry and Sir Clive James.

‘Richard?’ said the ever-more casual engineer. ‘We’ve isolated the problem. The water flow is being disrupted at number 43.’

’43?’ My mind did a quick run down the street until it came to a familiar driveway. ‘David Dickinson!’ I spat.

‘That’s the chap. He’s the funny thing. He’s running an Aqualine 2400 whirlpool and spa with a colonic nozzle.’

‘That doesn’t sound too bad,’ I said. ‘That’s at least half as powerful as my new hot tub.’

‘Ah,’ they replied. ‘That wouldn’t be a problem except he’s also got forty-two computer controlled ornamental Greek nymphs urinating around the side of his pool in carefully choreographed patterns. It’s quite the impressive sight but I’m surprised you get even a sniff of water when their bladders are on full power.’

I knew there was no point in asking David to control his forty two bladders. Since me and Michael Palin scorched David’s crotch, my relationship with David has been somewhat strained. It meant that I’d wasted money on a spa rendered incapable because a neighbour with a passion for kitsch. Which brings me back to the card in the breast pocket of my Sunday suit.

‘Vinnie,’ I said on the telephone yesterday morning. ‘What do you think about ornamental Greek nymphs that urinate around a rich man’s hot tub?’
Vinnie growled. ‘Makes me want to stick my f*****g boots into some rich guy’s j*****ws,’ he said.

And like the delicate notes of Judy trombone, that was music to my ears.

Anna Ford’s Mole

After a week of sitting in a cramped radio studio until one o’clock in the morning, it was a relief to be back on the spacious Madeley estate last night, helping Judy roll her new kegs down into the cellar. Since she’s taken up amateur brewing, my wife has spent a sizable part of our fortune buying the right equipment to open her own brewery. Barely a day doesn’t pass when the right side the R&J ampersand isn’t on the phone to either James May or Oz Clark, asking how to prepare her mash tun or when to add the yeast. When she came back from town last night, her four miniature shire horses pulling a cart loaded with large wooden barrels, it all felt a little too surreal for me. Yet I am, above all things, a loyal husband. After twenty minutes hard work, I rolled the last of the kegs down into the cellar and then stood back to wipe the moisture from the creaseless brow beloved by so many.

‘Not bad for a man of thirty eight,’ I said.

‘Fffft,’ said Judy as she began to unwrap the accessories that went with the barrels.

‘Okay... Thirty eight and some months,’ I said as I parked a tired cheek on the retired sofa we brought with us from ITV. It was a familiar feeling beneath me and I set to brushing away the dust from the sheet covering the indentation where Denise Richardson used to sit. As I rubbed my hand over that strange old crest and twin valleys, the exact shape and contour of Denise’s buttocks, I felt something strange beneath my fingertips. It was a shape I didn’t remember as being part of Denise’s lower slope.

‘Hello,’ I said, slipping my hand under the sheet as a man might slip his hand up a dress. ‘What’s this?’

Judy groaned as my hand emerged holding a dusty bottle.

‘Well I never,’ I said, immensely cheered by the discovery. ‘So this is where you hid them!’

‘Do you blame me?’ asked Judy, fingering her spigot.

‘I don’t blame you at all,’ I said, retrieving another two bottles. ‘In fact, I’m delighted. I’m sure they’ll have improved with age.’

We were talking, of course, about wine. But this was no ordinary wine. It wasn’t French and it didn’t come with elegantly designed label and hefty price tag. Yet this was the very rarest of drinks; none other than Bill Oddie’s fabled buttercup wine.

In the days when Bill was still an amateur bird watcher, not yet sure that he’d make a career out of his twitching, he had alternative paths that he had explored in fits of his usual high-pitched enthusiasm. He could have become the nation’s top astronomer if only he hadn’t lacked the necessary height to reach the eyepiece of the telescope I helped him erect in the attic of his hobbit hole. His involvement in the world of midget show ponies was the reason that Judy took up the reins (excuse the pun) and how she, herself, became one of the nation’s experts in horses under four feet tall. Eventually, Bill chose ornithology but, for a while, my bet had been that Bill would make his living from wine.

Bill Oddie’s Buttercup Wine is one of the great vintages of those post-Goodie years and it is still talked about in hushed voices among societies of London’s more knowledgeable tipplers. ‘Vin de Oddie’ is surprisingly light on the tongue, with a warm syrupy feeling that glides down your throat before returning with burst of citrusy aftertaste. It then slides down again, retreating with a woody flavour reminiscent of beards, before it comes back, rushing at you with a claw hammer and starts to beat your around your wrists and your ankles. I once drank a bottle of Bill’s wine and lost all feeling in my legs for three days. I remember one disastrous Monday when we had to film ‘This Morning’ with assistants carrying me between points in the studio to cover up the fact that I was still paralytic below the waist. It was after that episode that Judy took all my wine and hid it away. And this was why I was so happy to been reunited with my collection after all these years.

I carried the bottles up to the kitchen where I immediately introduced one to the corkscrew and then poured myself a healthy glass.

‘Are you sure it’s okay to drink that, Richard? It looked awfully yellow.’

‘As if kissed by a sunset,’ I said, in my best winespeak. I ran the cork under my nose to test the aroma. I gasped. ‘Ooh, Bachelor’s Super Noodles!’

‘Pardon?’

I picked myself up from the floor and straightened my fringe. ‘Wow! This stuff has really matured. It’s a real MILF among wines.’

‘A MILF?’ asked Judy.

‘It’s a wine term, Jude. You wouldn’t understand.’

The glass was surprisingly heavy as I picked it up, the wine more like olive oil the way it clung to the sides.

‘Oh, Richard, please. Not all at once.’

Even I wasn’t that foolish. I rolled the wine around the glass, ensuring that its aroma would build in the bowl and make it both a taste and smell sensation. Then I gave it a measured sip before I swished the wine around my mouth, over my tongue, between my teeth, and ending with a quick gargle. I am, as you can obviously tell, a man who takes his wine seriously and in a professional manner. Only then did I swallow it.

‘Well?’ asked Judy, standing to one side and armed with the fire extinguisher.

‘Well?’ asked Judy, standing to one side and waving a burning cat around the room.

‘Well?’ asked the devil waving a fiery pitchfork in his hand.

‘Well?’ asked the devil, who fell away beneath me as I rose into the sky.

‘You’re a yeasty fellow,’ said Stephen Fry, floating before me, his green cape flapping behind him like the wings of the angel we all know that he really is. ‘Did you ever discover the secret of Anna Ford’s mole?’

‘I didn’t,’ I said, looking down. I was floating beside him, hundreds of feet in the air. Talk of Anna Ford’s mole made me suddenly maudlin and aware of the passage of time. ‘Am I imagining this?’

‘Yippee!’ said Bill Oddie who flew past me wearing the national dress of the bumble bee.

‘This is all your fault,’ I shouted after him.

‘Oh, shush now,’ said Stephen. ‘Can’t you see that Bill’s happy?’

‘I can’t feel my legs,’ I realised. I looked down and I was surprised by what I saw.

‘You’re probably wondering about the size of your ankles,’ said Stephen. ‘That’s because they aren’t your ankles.’

‘Not mine?’

‘Ah, indeed they are not. Those are the lovely ankles of Ms. Denise Robertson. You have her legs too and, I should imagine, her buttocks, though I have not ventured that far in order to test my theory. But rest assured, Richard, that I am confident that the rest is all you.’

‘I want Judy,’ I moaned.

‘Ah, here comes Bill,’ said Stephen. ‘Let’s see what he says about that.’

‘Wheeeee!’ said Bill Oddie, a streak of black and yellow beard, wings struggling to sustain a heavy paunch.

‘Richard wants to go home to Judy,’ explained Stephen.

‘I bet he does,’ said the Bumble Bee Bill Oddie. ‘But he still doesn’t understand the secret of Anna Ford’s mole? Should we tell him?’

‘I loved Anna Ford’s mole,’ I sobbed.

‘Richard?’

I felt a slap across my face. Stephen seemed surprised and then shook his head slowly.

‘Anna?’ I begged. ‘Tell me the secret.’

Another slap and I opened my eyes and found I was lying on the kitchen floor, my head resting on Judy’s lap.

‘That was wonderful,’ I said. ‘Stephen was an angel.’

She slapped me around the jaw, her knuckles rattling a couple of my teeth.

‘That’s for what you said about Anna Ford,’ she scolded. ‘And I’m hiding those bottles again. I should really pour them down the drain but I wouldn’t know what they’d do to the water supply. You always get like this when you drink, Richard. All I hear is you muttering about Anna bloody Ford.’

‘That was Stephen’s fault,’ I explained. ‘He mentioned her name. Bill was there too. He was a bee and you were...’

‘Yes?’

‘You were another angel,’ I lied.

She stood up and let my head slip and crack against the floor tiles. ‘Richard,’ she said, ‘if I live to be fifty, I’ll never understand you.’

I suppose she was right. I stood up, smiling as I was surprised to find that my legs were my own and that they still had feeling. My bliss was only compromised as I watched a certain devil take the remaining bottles of buttercup wine out into the garden. The night was soon filled with the sounds of digging somewhere over near the ornamental statue of Ainsley Harriot. Judy knows, I suppose, that it’s the one part of the garden I try to avoid. However, now I have a reason to travel that far and even the sight of Ainseley’s meat shank and a side order of sprouts won’t be enough to keep me away. Not now. Not while there remained three bottles of Bill Oddie’s buttercup wine hidden beneath the turf. Not when I’ve come so close to solving the mystery of Anna Ford’s mole.