What a Monday morning to receive this most dire of all unwanted news –

Bill Oddie OBE, flown the nest at 85.

Clown. Musician. Footlighter. Naturalist hero. Pun-slinger without parallel. Old-time Music Hall hater and adorer. Activist. Humanitarian. Clever bugger. Banaman’s Crow sidekick. Scourge of the humbug, the selfish and the pretentious. Owner of the finest rock scream of any comedian. Mensch.

He was already on my mind today. I sadly woke up to someone RTing the once great John Cleese’s world-stoppingly moronic wholesome support for fascist criminal PLC Reform – which isn’t even a party. Way to ruin a whole week before you’ve even cleaned your teeth. This sent me on an angry workout-interrupting tirade about how desperate that man is to piss away every last scrap of decency he ever had. In one way Cleese can be applauded: nobody has ever had so much seemingly indestructible artistic credit and public love, and no artist in history has ever seemed so determined to piss every last scrap away until reaching absolute rock bottom. What a cultural experiment. Not so much Brewster’s Millions, but Cleese’s Cred. He seems determined to prove me completely and totally wrong in The Clue Bible when I said…

And the reason why he has lost it to such a tragic extent? Well, I mused, mental degradation aside, the answer’s simple: our old pal Terry Jones isn’t around any more to check his worst excesses. If Jonesy had his eye on him, John would realise how wrong he is and how very stupid he now looks. But equally, I was thinking about all the times Bill Oddie subtly let it be known what a frigging nightmare it was for everyone who ever had to work with JC. That Bill was another yang to Cleese’s ying: short, funky, fiercesomely passionate about social justice and human decency. If it was ever even remotely possible for Oddie ever to have lost his faculties to the extent of seeing GBNews as a legitimate platform, rather than a foreign-funded Treason channel, existing only to push fascist propaganda and bigotry… thankfully, he never, ever let slip.

But of course, he wouldn’t – it goes against everything he ever stood for, and everything good comedy stands against.

I don’t want to pay tribute to Bill in this tragically topical and negative way, though, he did too much good on this planet to remember him as part of a leftie tirade. This is the man who INVENTED ROCK AND ROLL COMEDY, for Angus Prune’s sake!

Twenty years ago, having signed contracts to write my first book, THE CLUE BIBLE, and interviewed a number of folk including Tim and Graeme, finally, I had a date and time booked in to present myself at the Oddie home in Hampstead, and hope that he would give me some good material to blend with his old friends’ memories. Beforehand, Graeme Garden, who had effectively sponsored me throughout to embark on this career, had given me a very mild warning, that Bill suffered fools very very badly indeed. In fact, let’s be honest, every single person I told about going to Bill Oddie’s house eyeballed me as if to say “Yeah, good luck with that” – Bill’s battles against severe depression, which he handled with great bravery and talked about with humane generosity, always gave some people the idea that they were allowed to wibble their lips at the comedy genius and present him as a ludicrous eccentric. But Bill owned his eccentricities from the day he was born, and wore them with pride. No matter how the editor of, say, Never Mind The Buzzcocks might like to slant an evening’s recording to make the old buffer seem doolally. When he made an appearance, Bill was always worth ten of everyone else on screen.

Anyway, back in 2007 I arrived mid-afternoon, Bill had the house to himself, brightly emblazoned in Bermuda shirt and shorts in midwinter. He made me tea, and began to talk… and by the time I left, three hours later, with that much dense, wise, hilarious material to put into the Bible, it was pitch black outside. Bill had completely trounced my lightest hopes of the meeting, he had been overflowing with kindness and fun, and I will always regret having to leg it to catch my train home, or sometimes I wonder if I would still be there now, jamming on his ukulele and slagging off right-wingers. I also regret that this was 2007, when selfies were much harder to suggest, and I have zero visual evidence of our wonderful afternoon.

(Of course, I never interviewed John Cleese for The Clue Bible. I spent £70 on a ticket to an event where I could ask him one question, in which I explained I had interviewed all his friends for this official book, and asked if he’d also like to take part. His response was one word – “PRICE!” He made it clear he wanted to be paid. This was 20 years ago, so you can imagine what he must be like at this stage. It’s clear why there was no David Hatch tribute, no full ISIRTA reunion.)

Having missed the chance to give Tim a gong, and with my dear friend Graeme Garden getting the Bath Plug Award a couple of years ago, I was urging the Bath Comedy Festival to consider having a big Bill celebration – once again, too late. I’ll also miss pissing next to him in the urinals at Bristol Slapstick – something which for many years seemed to be almost an unspoken tradition. I’ll always feel hugely privileged to have seen Tim and Bill performing old Radio Prune nonsense at ISIRTAA at the Old Vic in 2020, just weeks before Covid claimed Tim.

Ugh, we now live in a world with only two Beatles, three Stones, one Goodie – and maybe two or a maximum of three Pythons.

And, oh gawd, but I *LOVED* From The Top. This novelisation, especially. It says everything there is to be said about thwarted showbiz ambition.

I am generally too embarrassed to revisit any of my many interviews from over the years, even with those who are sadly no longer with us – I keep waiting for a distant day when the sound of my flailing fanboy voice is less annoying, if that’s possible. But I pulled up the audio evidence of that great Hampstead afternoon of 19 years ago… and had forgotten it was over two and a quarter hours long. Far too long to upload in its entirety, too long to edit… But I’m going to upload the first half, almost as is, to let others share in his glorious – and, yes, bloody grumpy at times – company. I haven’t heard it all back, so I apologise if I’ve left in too much me:

Here’s a shorter tribute from my collection: a song I did as an intro to the live ISIRTAA show, and which I have performed many times in tribute to Bill. And audiences ALWAYS, ALWAYS fall apart at the punchline:

Thanks for that afternoon, Bill – and for over 63 years of comedy brilliance.

Bill Oddie was one of the very last remaining utterly good ones, a life-long warrior against bullshit of all kinds. What a legacy, and all intact. Bless you, Bill.