My brilliant assistant Garry managed to foil this cunning plot by hiring a crack team of taxi drivers to drive me to Belgium. To keep us entertained, we took with us a a jazz quartet, and together we travelled in a vintage 1961 Bedford Coach which included a sauna and sushi bar. From Brussels I was able to catch a train through the Eurotunnel, and was thus returned to the welcoming bosom of my servants. I thanked them for their efforts with my traditional gifts of brown cheese and rotting fish.

So the Norwegians relented, but before they allowed me to leave Norway, they demanded that I make an appearance on the TV programme Skavlan. At least, I think Skavlan is the name of the programme, it could equally be the name of the channel, a day of the week or yet another Elk-based dish.

The bit with me in it starts at about 37 minutes and is conducted in English. For those of you who are in the 99.99% of people who don’t understand the Norwegian language and who might panic when they try to read the subtitles, no those are not Ikea instructions. Ikea is a Swedish company.

Update: several kind people have pointed out that the subtitles are Swedish, and that they are in fact a guide to furniture assembly.

Click here to see your Twitter birthday wishes from Twitter followers.

image:

Never one to be overly concerned about convention or even taste, I recently mentioned that I was considering ending it all on my upcoming birthday, which caused a little concern.

This gave us the idea of running a poll – how would you like me to end it all? NB: results are advisory, not binding.

Various things you need to know:

1. It’s not necessarily got anything to do with Nigeria
2. There is no gambling of any kind involved
3. You will receive emails from me and my minions
4. Some of these will include special offers that you’ll only get if you’ve signed up.

There you are, childishly simple. Even I could do it.

Here’s the link.

Here’s the page with the Telegraph’s wrong picture credit.

I’m delighted that the script came in at a mere 85 characters – a triumph for brevity.

I’m now finishing the sequel, “A World of Cheese” which will be released online very soon. It’s quite a bit longer.

Jimmy was a charming host and I loved doing the show.

The other matter of some concern to kind people has been the fate of our cottage, around which I recently showed this rather nice Frog from Seesmic, and I’m glad to say that so far (fingers crossed) we’ve escaped being fried to a cinder by the awful rampaging fires.

You can follow the great and very difficult work of the local fire brigade here.

http://tinyurl.com/5wl82v

This is a combined feed including this blog, Twitter, and the free podcast.

Well, aw shucks, doncha know, they are still making more versions of this interview..

The truly most bizarre of such questions was once asked by a slightly disconnected but physically stunning young female journalist from Los Angeles, who had obviously read about my interest in psychology, but whose sense of humour was clearly based on puerile scatalogy. She was probably in therapy herself – not a bad idea, everyone should try it at least once – and seemed rather fixated on matters of the body. “Nipples,” I said in context. She giggled. A while later, “fell flat on my bum”. She wriggled and giggled. Anything that could be phallic symbol, was a phallic symbol. In twenty minutes, we veered from Freudian analyses of Python films – were the coconuts in Holy Grail replacements for breasts? – to her laughing insanely, practically falling off her chair, pouting mouth covered by manicured hand, at the fact that I had been the first person to say the word “shit” on British television.

Finally, she girded her loins, leaned forward in a haze of pheremones and Chanel, and purred,

“So, what exactly do you think of when you answer the call of nature?”

It took a few seconds to work out what she meant, and I decided the only fair response was to respond with perfect media- trained skill to which I felt sure she could relate – I answered her question with a question.

“Sitting, or standing?”

At which, she suddenly became confused, blushed, started to stammer, gathered her audio recording device and hurriedly left.

Since then, whenever I commune with mother earth in the smallest room in the mansion, if my mind wanders from more lowly considerations, it thinks of her.

I’m perfectly happy with London aside from that one issue of the inevitable unpredictable clouds. If you could transport Californian sunshine to London, I’d leave the surfboards, the canyons and the orthodontically perfect smiles behind in a jiffy, lovely though they are, and return to the teeming complexity of this wonderful capital city more often that the few months a year my aching body can stand.

London is genuinely one of the world’s great cities; all complexions, nationalities, languages, attitudes, shades of skin, types of intelligence and senses of humour (spelled with a “u”) are to be found (also spelled with a “u”) in this two thousand-year-old metropolis. Just as you’re sure you’ve understood it, it reveals another aspect of itself, it reinvents itself. At the moment you’re sure it’s dating rather well, it capriciously modernises (spelled with an “s”). As soon as it seems parochially subservient, it usurps its place in the order of things and gets uppity with you. It refuses to lie down, and yet it is a city, unlike most American cities, which does get regular, healthy, refreshing sleep.

Wandering through the centre (spelled “re”) of London on a Sunday morning in the summer sunshine, one can almost imagine that down the piss-stained alleys lie secret orange groves and vineyards, that in the vast and manicured parks, the great London planes might harbour (spelled with a “u”) rainforest fauna, that walking on the south bank of the Thames (pronounced “Temz”) one might stumble upon a secret beach, a bunch of hippies having an arty party which everyone can join in…

If only the weather was like California.

Photo: Pixelthing

But it’s not just the rippling muscles and the courage in adversity that causes us to find them so heroic and attractive. For every hero there is an anti-hero; for every Clarisse there is a Hannibal; and it is the shady figure of the arsonist, whose flickering light throws the fireman’s darkest shadows, which gives us to this day our modern figure of comforting authority.

Now, this is not some kind of apology for fraudsters and murderers, but the fireman’s lot would be more humdrum if the kinds of problems he encountered were just dumb, by which I mean, the mundane occurrence of the conflagration of the toaster. That kind of randomly chaotic event seems comprehensible to us, on whatever scale it happens, whether it be the end of the match flying off and burning a small hole in an expensive item of clothing, or a meteorite colliding with the earth. Despite the fact that we cannot actually explain them, our minds seem to accept them. “Oh dear, there’s a hole in my best frock” – “Oh well, that’s the end of life on earth as we know it.”

However, the concept of some malign intelligence with evil purpose actually weakening a matchstick in every box fills us with dread and a terrible sense of threat, and the idea that the meteorite that is coming our way was thrown at us like a cricket ball from a planetary system several universes away gives us nightmares, even though the outcome is exactly the same.

The reason for this of course is that evil is a human attribute. Though we know there is a gulf between us, we consider the arsonist as one of us, and we comprehend that we could potentially be the arsonist ourselves “gone bad”.

Being consciously aware of this tendency is extremely difficult for most people, as we find the concept of firemen arsonists or murdering nurses almost impossible to digest, or to forgive. But, in our secret hearts, we identify as much with the villain as the hero, and it is this which causes us to be so scared. This is a useful piece of knowledge for novelists, authors, screenwriters, detectives, judges, politicians, parents and comedians to have, but it’s also a mindful position to occupy as we aspire and seek to emulate anyone’s heroics.

Now, pass me the hose would you, I’m going to put the cat out.

This really was a good game of pace and skill, and with a splendid surprise at the end of it, the favourites defeated, not too nasty with the last minute exception of a red card for a push which was followed by some excessive dramatics produced for the referee’s benefit – really not cricket.

Germany are talented and strong and will probably go through, but they have taken a serious knock. This will give hope to Portugal and Holland who are both in form – good news for sports fans everywhere. Much as I admire Germany the nation, the better team won. At the end of the day, it was a result which set the cat among the punditry pigeons. Feathers flapping, it has set the tournament alight.

It’s not widely known that the producers of Celebrity Big Brother have attempted to recruit yours truly for every UK series so far. In fact, they have frequently resorted to quite ludicrous levels of bribery, sending in the post entirely shameless blandishments of a most extravagant nature, all of which of course have had to be returned with a kind refusal note.

I have nothing against Mr Orwell. I simply do not want to appear in his television show, and neither do I wish to be interviewed by the clearly insane Davina. Now, if the Sony Award-winning Dermot was still in place, then it might be different, but he isn’t, and so the matter is closed.

I have devised several reality shows of my own. Much like human Big Brother they are based on studying animal behaviour, but mine are more to do with genuine reality, such as chewing, grooming, rutting, and spitting. My absolute favourite show is called “Big Llama” which something that other llamas will surely stay up all night to watch.