THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.162 - JIM MOIR (AKA VIC REEVES)

Episode Date: September 26, 2021

Adam talks with British comedian Jim Moir (aka Vic Reeves) about breakfast, bad language, encounters with music legends, art and the politics of DadaRecorded face to face (at a respectful and safe distance of course) on September 10th, 2021Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support.Podcast artwork by Helen GreenADAM BUXTON RAMBLES - 2021 BOOK TOUR DATESRELATED LINKSVIC REEVES ARTTHE SMELL OF REEVES AND MORTIMER - COUNTRYFILE -1995 (YOUTUBE)REEVES AND MORTIMER BBC DOCUMENTARY (OMNIBUS) - 1997 (YOUTUBE)VIC AND BOB'S AFTERNOON DELIGHTS - PHOTOSHOOT - 2011 (YOUTUBE)VIC AND BOB WITH TOM JONES - 2000 (YOUTUBE)VIC REEVES AND THE WONDERSTUFF - DIZZY - 1992 (YOUTUBE)EMF, VIC REEVES AND BOB MORTIMER - I'M A BELIEVER - 1995 (YOUTUBE)DADA AND SURREALISM - EUROPE AFTER THE RAIN - 1978 (YOUTUBE)This documentary examines the work of the leading exponents of Dada and Surrealism, from the First World War through the 1920s and 1930s.MEANING ALWAYS FOLLOWS FORM - ARTICLE by CAROL RUMENS ON HUGO BALL'S POEM 'GADJI BERI BIMBA' - 2009 (THE GUARDIAN)15 SURPRISING BENEFITS OF PLAYING VIDEO GAMES - 2017 (MENTAL FLOSS) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh, Rosie, look, the sun's going down. I forgot it gets dark so much earlier these days. You up for a walk before we lose the light completely? Yeah? All right, come on, let's do it. I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin. Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening. I took my microphone and found some human folk. Then I recorded all the how are you doing? Podcasts. Adam Buxton here, reporting to you from the evening time. I thought it was late afternoon of a beautiful day towards the end of September, yes, 2021. Then I looked up and it was evening. Bang!

Not even gloaming. Actually, maybe this is gloaming. And with my not amazing eyesight, everything is getting all fuzzy and blurry. Rosie, who has decided to join me for this walk she likes an evening walk uh she's up ahead but she's just a sort of black blur at the moment before i tell you about my guest for this episode i did just want to give you a bit of book tour info. Wow. Just turned a corner on the track. Now looking over to the west. It's the last bits of light after the sun has set. Still a bit of orange over there. Shut up, Buckles. Get your boring book tour info done, will you? All right, calm down. Blimey. Yeah, quick reminder about these book tour shows. Most of

these shows, I'm glad to say, Richmond, Brighton, Edinburgh, York, Cardiff, Birmingham, Norwich, Manchester, they're sold out. I mean, it's always worth turning up if you're able to do that, because there are always returns. There's always a few people who weren't able to make the rescheduled dates. So, you know, if you were desperate to come along to a show that was supposedly sold out, it's worth taking a punt, but obviously couldn't guarantee. However, there are still tickets available for the following, as I speak, the Aldridge Theatre, Farnham in Surrey on Sunday, the 3rd of October. in Surrey on Sunday the 3rd of October.

Delaware Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea, Monday the 4th of October, a few tickets left. Further back in the stalls, Tynan Theatre Opera House, Newcastle, Wednesday 13th of October, a few tickets there, not many. One or two left for the Marlow Theatre,

Canterbury, on the 23rd of October. Empire Theatre, Inverness, on the 4th of November. Regular podcats may recall me saying it didn't look as if anyone in Inverness was at all interested in coming to see Adam Buxton rambling. I think half the tickets have now been sold, but there's still quite a lot of room there, so do come along. Then there's Ireland dates in late November. Belfast, nearly sold out that one. Cork, that one recently went on sale, not nearly sold out. And Dublin doesn't appear to be on sale yet.

There's a link in the description to all the book tour dates. Apologies once again to people who bought tickets last year and cannot now make the rescheduled dates. Thanks to those who can, and I will do my best to provide an evening of electrifying reading, music, question answering, possibly book signing, depending on your local COVID regs. I hope to see you. All right, now let me tell you a little bit about podcast number 162, which features a rambling conversation with British comedian, actor and artist James Roderick Moir, also known as Vic Reeves. Jim facts. Jim, currently aged 62, was born in Leeds then moved to County Durham with his family at the age of five. After an apprenticeship in mechanical engineering at a County Durham factory

Jim moved to London where his studies included a stint at art college towards the beginning of the 80s where his passion for painting first flourished. Meanwhile, Jim started performing at so-called alternative comedy shows in London around that time. One of the people that attended one of those, a performance by Jim's showbiz alter ego Vic Reeves, was Bob Mortimer, who volunteered to join Jim on the stage. And, as they say, the rest, as they say, is history, as they say. Vic Reeves' big night out, the smell of Reeves and Mortimer, bang, bang, it's Reeves and Mortimer,

and shooting stars all helped make Vic and Bob two of the biggest, and for my money, the funniest names in UK comedy throughout the 90s. As well as continuing to collaborate with Bob Mortimer and taking on the odd acting and presenting roles on TV, Jim now spends much of his time making art, with works ranging from figurative paintings of birds to pictures that are kind of fine art versions of Jim's TV comedy work, by turns cartoonish, grotesque, surreal, and sometimes very funny.

My conversation with Jim was recorded face to face, hey, hey, hey, back in the room, on a rainy morning earlier this month, September 2021, in the house that Jim shares with his wife Nancy and their teenage daughters. Jim also has a son, Louis, currently in his mid-twenties and working on a documentary film called A Brush with Comedy about the intersection between humour and fine art. I talked with Jim about breakfast, the value in being sparing with bad language, although ironically there's quite a bit of bad language in that bit, just so you're aware. We talked about art and the art life. I got to wheel out my nearly-meeting David Bowie story again, and Jim told me about his close encounters with a couple of other British music legends.

told me about his close encounters with a couple of other British music legends. Back at the end, but right now, with Jim Wire, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, Could you just, for levels, tell me what you had for breakfast? Actually, I had one of John West's tuna infusions. What's a tuna infusion? It's a small tin of tuna but john west has had the brilliant idea of infusing it with lemon and thyme amongst other things but then you mix that with a bit of mayonnaise put it on toast that sounds like a winner yeah but uh i'm curious to know about your morning routine anyway yeah so what time are you having the sure what time

are you having the tuna infusion tuna infusion well this is the first time i've tried the tuna infusion but i'm a big admirer of john west and all his products yeah i do like fish for breakfast in fact thinking about it i am a big fisher file yeah for breakfast but anyway so this morning it was tuna infused with lemon and thyme which i mixed with mayonnaise and put it on toast at seven o'clock this morning 7 a.m other mornings i might have pickled herrings other mornings if it's a special occasion i get some um sardines with a little bit of um tabasco on oh salt and vinegar on toast nice fishy breakfast brown toast oh yeah when i was a kid people used to have mother's pride yeah and that was luxury but i don't know if is it still luxury because i was i come from a brown bread family you know it was a bit bohemian

it was health food my mom claims she was the first person in britain to import muesli that's very progressive well it was a progressive household this is in the late 60s yeah when muesli well it's probably used as a base to mop up budgie shit in a cage, but we decided to eat it. Good eating habits early on. Yeah. So they weren't coming back and feeding you non-stop burgers and mash and...

No, it was all, as far as I remember, yeah, it was a very, quite a foodie house. We were vegetarians for years as well. Really? When it wasn't, you know, there was the only other vegetarian in the world was John Lennon, I think. Yeah.

Or maybe Paul McCartney. But, so we were vegetarians. Really uncool. Did people at school know that you were vegetarian and tease you about it? Yeah, it's like, it was a very namby-pamby thing to do. Yeah, definitely. I remember even, you know, growing up in the 80s, I didn't know any vegetarians. And it just seemed like the strangest thing. And then when I heard about vegans, it's like, you're joking, aren't you?

What, you don't even eat eggs? What's wrong with eggs? Yeah, well, they say i do love eggs yeah and fish i can't really i couldn't involve myself with the world of veganism that's too much far too far i mean i've tried like if tomorrow suddenly the edict came down okay it's all vegan now i want to be able to Yeah. And I want to know that it's going to be enjoyable. There's still fun things to be eaten. Obviously there are. Not cheese though.

No, but I don't like cheese anyway. Really? Yeah. No, you're the first person I've ever met. This, I had this exact conversation. I mean, I've had this exact conversation a few times, but I was staying with a friend yesterday and had the same thing he's like

i've never met anyone who doesn't like cheese is it really that unusual i think it probably is unless you're japanese oh yeah okay that's maybe why i like japan so much i love japan but i can really see their point you know if you think right let's get this cow and squeeze some juice out of it then let it go off and that sounds delicious you know they've got a pint when it comes to cheese but you know sometimes you don't have to you shouldn't think about those things just enjoy the cheese oh and then the other thing is a stilton cup which the um the georgians used to enjoy which is you put maggots in and then when the maggots eat the cheese, you drink the maggots and the cheese in a kind of soup. Oh.

Not gone that far. No. Mind you, yoghurt's pretty bad. You know, when you think about it, let's get some of that juice that we've squeezed out of that beast and then introduce a bacteria. It's monstrous. That's the thing we used to do when we were kids.

My mum, we used to make our own yoghurt. We used to have a big, like, you get the yoghurt, mother thing, seed, whatever it is. And then we'd make... Spore culture. The culture, yeah. And we'd make our own yoghurt in a bucket. Were your parents actual hippies then?

Well, it was not hippies, no, but it was quite a crafty area. My dad would make plates and cups and things out of wood. Okay. And my mum would paint them with floral designs and little devices on them. I mean, they weren't hippies or beatniks, but they were kind of maybe Victorian crafty people, that sort of thing. You know, like the arts and crafts movement. But were they considered a little bit fringe and a bit odd by the compared to the other friends yeah yeah okay and what about

things like tv then were they suspicious oh yeah that was um you had to give uh reasons why you wanted to watch land of the giants or the man from uncle because it was like you get almost written permission and my dad when the TV was on he used to make me laugh every time he says look I know what you're laughing at because the TV be on and he said to me mum he said right can we have it off now and I would laugh my head off and he was going look

it's not that fun every time I say that you know what I mean that phrase used to make me laugh a lot as well yeah did you get it as well people don't say having it off anymore do they no i'll have it away have it off you're having it off and shit as well that's another one you do were they funny your parents yeah yeah my dad was especially he's a dad now but he yeah he was very funny there's a lot of face pulling yeah yeah yeah and funny voices yeah you know he's from the goons generation

so there's a lot of that you know yeah a lot of goons style voice yeah yeah which is good and and so you got into that i've never really got the goons too much anyway uh-huh i know what you mean i didn't really listen to much comedy i'll watch it really so i don't know where it is things like me mom and dad talking at close quarters it was real life what did your parents do for a living to go back to them? My dad worked at the, well, I was born in Leeds. He worked at the Yorkshire Post. Okay. And then we moved to Darlington because he moved to the Northern Echo.

So he did, he worked at the newspaper. What was he doing there? Was he a journalist? He was a printer. Oh, a printer. Yeah. Come from a long line of printers. I did, who do you think you are

they did the pilot on me yeah because i got quite a ridiculous story but on my dad's side it just goes back centuries and centuries into scotland of printers who have nothing of any unusuality at all really boring on my mum's side it's a lot more exciting do you want a brief outline yeah man right on my mum's side my mum's my grandma came from america my mum's father was the son of head butler and had made at very big houses around britain and this lord and lady knocked him over in their carriage and said oh we're so sorry we'll pay for his hospitalisation and we haven't got any kids so can we bring him up

so he's brought up aristocratically went and got married later on after he'd been brought up in his big house he went and got married went to the first world war left his wife and three children and just never went back to them.

Went off to Leeds, met my grandmother, who'd just come from America, who was, I think, about 19, and my grandad was in his 50s. So they got married and had my mum and my uncle, but she said they just sort of drifteded around and he didn't work he was always on the dole your granddad yeah but he was like this aristocrat on the dole yeah fake aristocrat that's like a movie it could be couldn't it yeah and the and i'll get to play him no i'm too old for him i'll play uh the old fella who adopted him yes you could be sir lord i think somewhere in essex rickman's worth I think it was somewhere in Essex.

Rickermansworth, I think it was. Well, what an interesting family they must have been as well. I would imagine that not everybody in their position would have made that decision. Well, I think they were quite nice people. Yeah. There's pictures of them with Edward VII. Apparently he used to sing for Edward VII

and also keep guard for Edward VII apparently used to sing for Edward VII and also keep guard for Edward VII. While Edward VII was doing what? Whatever it was he was doing. For half a crown, apparently. His little private guardsman. Yeah. So what did your parents inherit from him then what did your mum like did she have a lot of memories of him that she told you she didn't really like him

um but there was a lot of table manners that had to be impeccable okay yeah did you ever have that yes my dad his parents worked in a stately home or a posh house. They were servants. Well, so the same as mine. But mine were head butler and head maid. Yes, my grandfather was also head butler, chauffeur, and then groundskeeper. Yeah, so same sort of thing. So you're brought up with the impeccable table manners,

and it all has to be almost measured. The knives and forks have to be in the right spot and the soup spoons and everything have to be in the right place. So you had all that. Yeah. And so you were brought up a polite young man. Yeah.

Okay. And I was talking to my kids yesterday and I said I was hearing on the radio that your generation is the sweariest generation ever in history i said my granddad always used to say to me this is my other granddad he said swearing's all right if you just pick your moment he said it can be like a bomb if you swear all the time it's going to have no effect but and also that he says the person who swears all the time is incapable of understanding the English language and can't find the word to put in its place

so I've kind of like almost shaming him into not swearing I think I've made the exact same speech to my children because recently now that the boys were a little older 17 19 the other day my 17 year old unleashed the f-bomb at the dinner table the postman no we have a nice a nice postman and it was in the context that he was it was reported speech right so he was all right so he was yeah okay he wasn't saying give me the fucking ketchup where did you get these fucking sausages not fucking fish again no he was reporting someone else uh he was sort of saying yeah this guy was like fuck you you know and i kind of the moment, I was thinking that I should say like, can we not swear at the dinner

table? I mean, you guys know I'm fine with swearing. I love to swear. But exactly as your grandfather would have done. I've had the conversation before. I've said like, swearing is fun. Like a good swear is great great and i love to hear a good swear but yeah if it's all the time you debase the currency yeah and uh it's all the fun goes out of it so what did you do just ignore it i let it slide because i thought fair enough it's not like he's effing and jeffing right the way through every meal what you could have done is slam your knife and fork down and then said nothing walked out and he would have had to come and find me in my study no you slam your knife and fork down and then stare at your dinner for a bit

and then carry on that would say so much more or i could have just looked at him like held eye contact with him yeah and then looked away maybe he was doing it just you know because he would have thought i'm gonna see what i'm what response i'm gonna get here yeah i don't think he keeps a diary but if he does that would have been a diary entry surely but then a couple of weeks after that now here's a story about you know you'd let one f-bomb through a couple of weeks after that c-bomb what not at dinner yeah and at that point he's working you he's working you off isn't he and i can't go much further than that no where do you go after that all i suppose but again it was reported yeah so where you go after that is direct usage like calling me that word i suppose we haven't got there yet but at that point i did

say actually can we not have the actual word at supper you might remember this because we both started about the same time on telly didn't we in the early 90s i was we were a little bit after you but yeah but i mean it was still there in you know you used to go into the if you're in the bbc into an executive's office on the wall would be the swear list oh yeah and it'd be like right at the top was i think god jesus anything religious and then that was the top that was the worst one you could get anything religious was the worst and then it would go down with all the Anglo-Saxons, all those words. I would imagine it's a lot more race-based now. Yeah, yeah.

And the God stuff, and this wasn't that long ago, that'll be down at the bottom because I think you can get away with any kind of religious. Pretty much. America is a lot more religious still, I think, than the UK. I don't know exactly what i'm talking about but yeah it it feels like i mean you forget though because the media is so secular i think but you forget that overall you know 90 at least 90 of people in the world are still religious you know yeah it's they're the majority so because you look i look, I always look at, um, I don't know if you do it, but I look on IDMB,

um, like I'm B, I am DB, DB. I can never get this right. Um, and I said, I look at the parents guide for my own use.

Cause I don't like to see people's heads getting blown off. So I look at the violence and goal section. And then if you look at the sweat profanity section on the parents guide it'll say um the use of jesus three minutes in so you get a lot of that in there because people are thinking oh i can't watch that because they're using the lord's name in vain yeah yeah yeah my dad was certainly he didn't like that no i used to get at school used to get in big trouble yeah that that was the worst thing you could do and then after that if i mean you're getting in trouble saying crap yeah at school i said i mean i say crap too often now

i must say every now and again you're kind of reminded oh i'm sort of saying shit really is what i'm saying. But crap just seems so innocuous. Me and Joe used to, every other word was crap when we were on TV. We all used to say twat as well. But being Southerners, we didn't realise how offensive it was the further north you go. Is it? Yeah, I think it's like the C word.

Really? Well, I knew it was a sweary. No one really knows what it is, do they? Is it a lady's part? Or is it a pregnant goldfish? I just presumed it was a pregnant goldfish because that's what I was told in the 70s. Well, there's prat, isn't there? A prat is something as well.

Well, it's an arse, isn't it? A pratfall. You fall over, you know all right i'm gonna have to google this what prat yeah i can't let this one slide i think it's a very gray area prat british incompetent or stupid person yes okay a person's buttocks there you go that's exactly what you said okay so yes person's bottom person's bottom. How about... Twat. Twat. I didn't think it was more offensive in the north than the south.

That's what I understand. When we were on XFM, me and Joe, we used the word a fair bit until the station boss came in and said, don't say that anymore, please. It's really offensive for people like in the north. For twats. For twats. For twats. They keep referring to me.

And it's really getting upsetting. The twats are really unhappy about it. Stupid or obnoxious person, a woman's genitals. Right. Or to hit or punch someone. If my best mate said that, I'd twat him. It doesn't... Yeah, I got twatted.

Yeah. I've got to forget that. It's true, isn't it? Yeah. But nothing about pregnant goldfish. I think that was just a rumour that was going around town by Robert Wyatt.

That's what that song was actually about. Hello. Hello. Wyatt. That's what that song was actually about. hello so in the mornings when you're here you paint right yeah i get up about 6 30 and i paint every day virtually until lunchtime and then have lunch and go for a walk is it always oils that you paint in or do you just go a lot of um these are all watercolors here oh wow and people really like birds i mean because it's the main job yeah and i really like it because i don't know i'm not retired and i never will retire but i've kind of retired myself away from television yeah because i really like staying at home and painting pictures and i make probably more money so it just makes sense this morning i've been down the printers i take stuff down there's a cottage industry yeah well my christmas present last year from my wife was a

print of yours and was it yeah and it was various bowie heads all right and uh it was very funny and it was the watercolors that i'm looking at over on the table behind you now are beautiful fairly straightforward pictures of birds like they're not mad no you know i know what i sell yeah and it's like there's things i really want to do. And I really like doing the birds. Yeah. But then again, I might want to veer off into a fantasy land. I think your stuff is great. And I envy your lifestyle. That's something I really would love to do. I went to art school.

I don't think I'm as good a painter as you. But I would love to be able just to incorporate that into my daily routine, just drawing or making stuff or whatever. But the... You could. I could, yeah. I mean, I'm waiting. Did you make a decision at some point?

Did you... Well, that's what I was doing before I was on TV. Yeah. I had art shows and I worked in a gallery. I went to art school and I sold paintings and then I ended up kind of doing it on stage and then on TV doing an art performance. And then that kind of took over, but I've never stopped.

Even when we used to do the Big Night Out and the Smell of Reeds and Water, it was always full of my artwork. Yeah. It's kind of incorporated. So it's all one and the same thing to me. And the stuff you were doing at art college then and the paintings you were selling then,

were they sort of nutty or were they fairly straightforward, representational? Actually, I'll show you. I found this the other day. It's a little leaflet. Look, this is in 96. Look. Oh, wow.

And I wrote that. The Garden Gallery. Exhibitions January 86 to June 86. Monson Road, New Cross Gate. Admission free. James R. Moyer. James paints to the sound of a flourish of trumpets. His paintings are classic, romantic and bombastic.

They are beautiful works of art with just a hint of blatant plagiarism. Moyer paints Aphrodite and Adonis alongside the proud and mighty hog. His paintings have been shown all over Europe and are in numerous collections around the world. Yeah. This unbridled passion for painting and paintings has produced some extraordinarily brilliant and soulful masterpieces. And then, is that actually one of your paintings? That is, that's a painting, a copy of a painting by David, which I was doing at the time.

I was copying masters. Yeah, which is a sort of legitimate thing to do for artists, isn't it? But I was working at this gallery. Yeah. Because I put my own you know there was the bloke who ran the gallery and he said well why don't you do a show in here and you can write your own bit of blurb so that's why it's so fantastic so that's what i was doing in 1986 and after that i ended up doing it on the state you know

stuff on the stage which all you after that, we're on TV. But there's the birds, and then all the rest of it has got comedy involved. Which my son's doing, Louis is doing a film called A Brush With Comedy, which is about people who do comedy and art. Yeah, of whom there are many. And it's a lot. There is a big comedy. it's like when you look at um all the pop stars have been to art school yeah like virtually you know there's the beatles the

stones the who and roxy music and roxy music yes and uh there is a big link so there's art music and comedy and it's all yeah they all cross over yeah because you're all trying to find unusual ways of expressing what it's like to be alive and what the world looks like well it's ways of looking isn't it yes trying john berger said and but you're the same you went to art school and then you just ended up doing comedy and you just it's it's ways of seeing things and then you've got the chicken in the basket style comedians who just report what's already there well yeah there's that

you've got the because I think you probably fit into the same category as me it's the art school comics, you know the people who do comedy that have been to art school and see things in an art school way which would be Noel Fielding and Harry Hill, you can see you know those people i'm gonna say it's chicken in a basket i presume that's still what you get at a working man's club saturday night you get uh

tofu sausages is it chicken in a basket still or is that in the past i've never had chicken in a basket if you work in class the poshest thing you can get is chicken in a basket still, or is that in the past? I've never had chicken in a basket. If you work in class, the poshest thing you can get is chicken in a basket. Yeah. I always wondered, is it breaded chicken? Anyway, this is not a chicken. It's just a chicken dinner, but it's presented in a basket. They just dumped it in a basket.

No, it's like now you go to places and they'll put your dinner on a slate. Oh, yes. It's the same sort of thing. But, I mean, if I had a restaurant, I'd serve it on a clock face or something like that. Well, I do feel like I love that world of comedians and musicians, the art school scene. But I always felt slightly outside it because I think that there is within that world

a division between people who have a genuinely unusual perspective on the world. And I would put you in that category. And then people who are a fan of that way of looking at the world and aspire to emulate it somehow. And I think I'm probably in that category. So I'm more kind of pulling things apart and analyzing how they work and things like that. But I think you don't feel the need to do that right you're not someone who is going out and watching loads of comedy and saying how does this work and no i never watched comedy yeah really i i try and give things a bit you know

i give about five minutes it seems nowadays I usually abandon it quite early. I think it's funny in America because I think some American comedy is the best, the best ever, better than British, and then most of it is worse than anything. But Britain are the innovators, if you like, I think. Who were the people that you liked then? Who did make you laugh when you came across them? Well, I always liked...

Well, the stuff that made me really laugh was Laurel and Hardy and the Three Stooges and stuff like that. But I didn't really watch a lot of TV, a great deal. Certainly not any comedy, because it just wasn't on the radar in our house. Biscuits, mm-hm I am in love with you I'll dip you in my tea

but pull you out before you fall apart I won't abandon you biscuits, biscuits mice You've got I'm with David Bowie on your laptop? Yes, that's a sticker that came with a book about him You weren't with him then?

No, it looks authentic But it's just because it's on my laptop Have you ever met him? I met Bowie very briefly Backstage at Maida Vale What were you doing there? Jonathan Ross had invited me and Joe to go and see Bowie play. It would have been around 2003. Oh, it was a concert? Yeah, yeah. It was a small

concert he did for the BBC for Radio 2. At that point, I was a little bit jaded about him. I sort of thought, well, his best years are behind him. He's not really doing anything interesting anymore, but still, he's Bowie and I want to go and see him and it was quite exciting and he was very good actually and he asked jonathan if he had any requests like he said is there anything you want me to play and that was good that's one of my only impressions can you do it again or is that certainly yes oh that is good isn isn't it? Yeah. I'm looking through my binoculars. You see, that's... That was the impressionist. No, that's...

What's he called? The guy who did Stella Street. That's the Phil Cornwell Bowie. Is it? Yeah, that's a bit more kind of wobbly. Oh, is it like Anthony Newley? I love Anthony Newley. So did Bowie, of course.

Wanted to be like that. And so I think that's part of the reason that Bowie had this, he had this slightly... It's a bit nasal. Cockney thing. And also quite sibilant with the S's. He's a bit nasal then, isn't he? Yes.

You've got the ask good there. Anyway, yes. Anyway, so there was David. And he askedathan if he had any requests and jonathan said oh i uh yeah yeah let me check because he knew that me and joe were big fans i wasn't around apparently so he called joe joe said ask him to play beaulie brothers do you know that song yeah off hunky dory bowie hadn't played it ever live i think i'm right in saying that maybe a bowie nut will tell me maybe he performed it before but it was certainly one of the first

times he'd ever performed it like so he knew what he knew he was going to do it no they worked it up for the show because joe had requested it via jonathan so he requested it early so it wasn't just a surprise no, it was good. And then we saw him in the, in the corridor afterwards. He came towards us. Jonathan said, you want to meet him?

We were like, yeah, but then, uh, and I've told this story before, but then Ricky Gervais side swiped us. He kind of appeared and he just, the office was just becoming a thing at that point.

And Bowie said, Oh, hello. I love your show. I love the office. It's hilarious and that was the end of that we never got a look in so we sort of we exchanged glances but before we'd been properly introduced oh no him and ricky went off and held hands and became lovers that's

terrible isn't it oh i was i was gutted he could have waited his turn i was i did see him once when i was on top of the Pops, and he was in his band Tin Machine. Oh, yes. And I think he had this idea that he was like a heavy metalist, and he kind of ponced about a bit like that and was playing the part. So I don't think I saw Bowie, but not the real Bowie. It was him playing the part of a heavy metal presenter.

Did you talk to him at all? No, he kind of sort of thrust his way through people looking a bit hard. But I thought, that's not you. You're just putting that on, aren't you? Anyway, how about this? Just thinking, I was at Jeff Beck's wedding and there was a rockabilly band on stage and it was like people were getting up and singing a song.

So I think Jeff said, go up and do something. So I go up and... So I was on stage with Paul McCartney and Jimmy Page. And they said, what are we going to do? I said, can we do I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts? So I did. And there's no evidence of me doing this, but it did happen. So I'm stood with Paul McCartney of me doing this, but it did happen.

So I'm stood with Paul McCartney on one side and Jimmy Page on the other. And I'm in the middle, like the lead singer, doing I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts, of which I only knew the first verse. And then Paul took over and knew everything. Oh, really? Paul McCartney is one of those people who will know the words and the

play anything so that that was uh yeah so were they both playing guitar then yeah with me in the middle wow okay here are the lyrics to i've got a lovely bunch of coke god there's loads i know what's how does it begin then i've got a lovely bunch of coconuts see them all standing in a row big one, small one some as big as he read give it a twist, a flick, a wrist that's what the showman said and then that's me done

but this you know always when you go on stage especially with legends make sure you know all the lyrics over to you paul i mean were you you must have had a few crazy encounters at the height of your pop fame yeah do you know what it's like when you think something and you can't say it because bob and me did a song with tom jones once it was before he'd let his hair go white, and he obviously cared quite a lot about his perm, and it had been pulled this way and that,

and the perm was very tight, and we were really close together. And I smelt the pomade in his hair, and it kind of put me off, because I was really concentrating on his hair, thinking about it too much that I forgot the lyrics. I forgot completely what I was doing, where I was or anything.

Intoxicated by Jones's hair. What was the song you were doing? I can't remember. It was one of those things that you do for comic relief or something. It was a long, it was 25 years ago maybe. Are you a Googler? Do you Google stuff when you don't know them?

Yeah, I Google really rubbish things. Yeah, I do. ago maybe but are you a googler do you google stuff when you don't know them um yeah i google really rubbish things yeah i don't yeah i do on the night of a thousand shows 2000 don't know what that means in 2000 yeah is that the one big reason bob mortimer recreating old morcombe and wise routine with tom jones i expect that's what it would be then, yeah. Yeah. Can you see his really tight perm? Yeah. That's before he let it go.

Yeah, I remember just being mesmerised by his hair and the scent of it. Then we went off to the bar and he's a really nice bloke yeah he's like we went off to the BBC bar

and he just started telling us stories like about he was when I started off he was you know just working in those

clubs you know in the valleys and he says and he's he's 11 or so and he'd give a nice punch up at the end of it

but he was just telling stories about not the end of it but he was just telling stories about not his show busy it was just like what he used to get up to

in the valleys and I said you went to Vegas he was going oh yeah he says I had an airplane dresses

people like that he says best thing for me I had a fucking lake like that is the best thing for me i had a fucking lake like that is the best thing what is what makes you think a lake is better than a private jet but he's a really nice bloke tom he seems like it yeah and then you were touring around like dizzy was i mean that's one of the very few number ones that

a comedian has had a british comedian well it's the probably the first one because when we started off we were like courted by the nme oh yeah it was like we were comedy rock and roll yes we came from a kind of arty rock and you know it was sort of indie comedy we used to knock about with indie bands yeah so it wasn't too much of a leap. But the first thing I did was Born Free. That was number three in the charts. And then Dizzy was number one. And then after that, I had another number three with I'm a Believer.

Oh, yeah. And, curiously, I'm going out on tour with Jules Holland doing those three songs. Are you? Yeah, I'm doing Five Nights. Because Jules said, do you want to come? And I just liked it. And I thought, I like doing those things where it's... I think if it was someone else, I wouldn't do it.

But I like the idea of just, because he's my mate, that sounds like good fun. You know, getting about somewhere, going to Plymouth and doing that. You were in bands, though, right, when you were a young man? Yeah. What kind of bands? Sort of indie, punky sort of, you know.

You know what I mean. I don't know how to describe it. One of them's called Hot Murder. It was the one band that I was in. Because in the 70s, we used to change the name of the band. It was the same band, but we used to change the name all the time. So it might be, they called it Rum, or Bobby and Jackie Charlton's Eerie Mansion,

or Dig Me, I'm Django. We changed the name every gig so no one would know who we were. So we couldn't get any fans. Because we thought that was the kind of punk rock attitude to things. It's like, you know, you don't want people to like you. What are you talking about? And then we took it to an extreme. So we're in this band, and I said,

why don't we just not have a name at all, but we have some flasks of curry? And people go, it's that band that smell like curry. But then I thought, if we do another another gig you haven't got a name so you can't do a poster and and then if it is it's the band that smell like curry it just looks like a comedy group so exactly it always comes down anything on the poster so you kind of it's completely negated so the next best thing is just not have a band. But when you were doing all your band stuff and things like that,

were you already into the art scene? Were you already thinking about Dada and Hugo Ball and Nonsense Boy? Yeah, I was thinking about... I've never stopped thinking about that sort of area. Yeah. Where did you get exposed to that? I think it's a very showy off thing. You know, if you look at things like Dadaism and Surrealism and things like that, it was like Yves Tange would eat spiders, for instance, at parties.

And, you know, there's nothing particularly arty, but it's just showing off, isn't it? It's quite good, though. I mean, it's not nice to the spiders. But you liked the idea of being someone who was knowledgeable about these things and associated with them. And would you behave in a self-consciously odd way then to freak people out? I suppose so, because we had a gang in our late teens, and we used to go and see arty films.

We'd go on marauding trips to art galleries they can check things out and we all used to wear the same we had yellow jumpers and black trousers and uh be a kind of aloof and separate gang to everyone else in fact we did we forced a deja vu on generation x once we We went to see him, I think it was at Newcastle University, and we were sat on a long bench table, all five of us in our yellow jumpers and black trousers, and Billy Idol came past and looked at us. We went, hello, Billy. And he walked past on his way to the stage. And then he went, hey. And then I think they were on about five weeks later as well. And we went and did exactly the same thing and said, oh, hi, Billy. And then he walked past and then turned around and looked back again,

like full deja vu. Did this just happen or did it happen five weeks ago? And I think that's a great thing to force deja vus onto people. You can go out of your way to force a deja vu. To make someone feel crazy. I think it's probably pretty easy to do. Yeah. way to force a deja vu to make someone feel crazy i think it's probably pretty easy to do yeah um looking at hugo ball's nonsense poem gaji beri bimba yeah i was reading an article about it in the guardian that was written in 2009 by carol rumens and you know the whole dada thing is so interesting isn't it because it was such a

reaction against politics at the time i suppose that's what people say i mean you know i'm not an expert on dada isn't all but people are always looking still looking now even probably even more now looking for a reason and i think dada is the actual opposite of reason so but people are still trying to find some reason why Why did he do that? And they said it was in opposition to First World War fighting. But I don't think it was. I think it was like most people from art school just doing something daft,

which trivialises it fantastically, but that's the truth. I suppose you can say, though, that you're operating within a structure and some of whether you know it or not whether it's conscious or not these are responses to your environment so hugo ball and the dadaists whether it was intentional or conscious there must have been something about witnessing the horrors of the first world war that made them more receptive to the idea of just being silly?

Well, there might have been something like that. That's why they went off to Switzerland and set up shop there, which was away from the war. So there were conscientious objectors, white featherites, and all sorts of, you know, so they probably wouldn't have been going, blowing trumpets saying this is how bad war is because everyone was going to war and they were they would have been in probably in a lot of trouble if they just started blowing trumpets about being anti-war

yeah exactly it's like politics is sort of inescapable in that way you can't really opt out opting out is in itself a political statement. You feel that a lot now, don't you think? Like politics has become so exhausting and so divisive in so many ways, but it's like, it's not really good enough. I say this as someone who doesn't feel qualified to sound off about politics on the whole, but it's like, I sometimes feel like people think,

well, that's not good enough. You know, you can't just opt out. I keep away from politics as much as i possibly can yeah it's i don't want to i don't think i'm qualified to say anything about but it seems like it's from my outsider's point of view picture it seems like it's i've never known it as much of a competition uh-huh it's like oh if you say that i want to say the opposite and let's see who wins not about what's right and wrong it's like, oh, if you say that, I'm going to say the opposite. Let's see who wins. Not about what's right and wrong.

It's like, let's see who can win this. If I say this, I'm going to say the opposite and then we'll fight it out. I don't have any video games, but it seems like life is quite a video game. Do you do video games? A little bit. I always feel guilty when I play them.

I feel like no disrespect to the gamers and the people who create them, because I really do think there's an incredible amount of amazing creativity in that industry. But I do feel, for whatever reason, that it's a total waste of time. Like, I feel as if if I read a book or even watched a film then i would be it would be a more meaningful engagement i'm exactly i'm with you but i think we come from that generation yeah and it's the competition from the generation that you and i grew up in is to have knowledge and not to have got to level five on a jumping game. Even though, I mean, I really love them.

I think I'm afraid of them because... They're too addictive. I don't know if you get me wrong. I have played them, but I just wouldn't have now because I know I'll probably get addicted. And I know I would be not very good. It would just get me wound up. And do you feel guilty about things? Yeah, I really do. Do you feel guilty about things yeah i really do you feel guilty about maybe watching

a movie on an afternoon um it depends what movie but yes a little bit yeah now this is the if it was a shitty movie i'd feel guilty but i would be maybe feel all right if it was a 1962 british kitchen sink movie exactly right yeah i mean it's silly isn't it because there's nothing inherently valuable about something that's a bit older but it feels that way it feels like oh this is legit and i'm in a way not only am i watching a movie but this is kind of like learning about history or something, or I'm doing something. And then you feel guilty if you do, but it's the same thing. If you know,

playing a video game, I'd probably feel guilty at any time of day, but in an afternoon, it's almost like a sickness. Yeah. I agree with you. I was in a lineup once for, um,

some award thing or something or other. And I was stood next to Alec Guinness, and I was talking to him, because it was like being in a queue to get into a... I don't even know what it was. So I was stood in this queue with Alec Guinness and talking to him, and he said, I've spent all my life,

I've never smoked, nor drank, nor taken drugs, but next week I'm 80, and i'm going to start on the heroin did he really say that yeah i don't know if he ever did but that's what he said to me but that's the yeah you can sometimes be too goody goody can't can't you? And you might have missed out. Yeah, I suppose so. Heroin, though. It's very Moorish.

The film that I watched the other day in the afternoon and felt okay about was Riffifi. Yeah. Have you seen that one? I'm not sure if I have. I probably have. It was... Supposedly one of the greatest heist movies ever made.

Yeah. Is it Italian? French. French. Jules Dacin. Yeah. I think was the director. I used to go and see films like this at the cinema in London

in the late 70s, early 80s. All the time, we'd go and see films like that, you know. And then it got to the point where I'd seen a double bill at some little cinema in Rupert Street, and it was Le Petit Main, which was good, The Farting Frenchman. Oh, yeah! And this was an Italian version of it, and that was good. But it was on a screen which was probably smaller

than a current tv screen and uh and then after that there was a documentary about t dan smith the corrupt councillor from newcastle in the 60s and 70s i thought these art films i'm gonna start going to see you know close encounters and um arison ford the blockbusters yeah but that double bill sounds like a template for a lot of vic and bob stuff well it was and then also bob and me went to los angeles in 1992 and there was it started raining it was the floods of 92 we were stuck there for three weeks in this house in laurel canyon watching the three stooges and taking notes and came back and did the smell of ruse of mortar did you literally take notes yeah absolutely what kind of things were you noting

down do you remember well you know like must use you know, kick Bob in the face and then turn the foot around and grind it well in. After saying earlier on that I wasn't fond of violence, there is room for it. Yeah, when it's a giant frying pan. There's a great Three Stooges film where they're trying to fix a telegraph pole and they have boots

on it with spikes on them and they keep standing on each other's heads with these spikes that get stuck into the tops of their heads. It is the most violent thing ever but it's hilarious but when you know kind of reduced to the fact that

someone's just got a four inch spike stuck in the top of their head and goes They used to you know, kind of reduced to the fact that someone's just got a four-inch spike stuck in the top of their head and goes, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. They used to really hurt themselves doing some of that stuff. Oh, they would do. I mean, Bob and me did. Did you?

Yeah. What kind of things? Well, the earliest one I remember is it was the largest diamond in the world which contained a puppy. And it swung down across the stage and smacked Bob straight in the face and I think knocked him out.

I think that's still in the show though, right? It's all in there, yeah. But we used to really hit each other with pans and things. You can't not. I think health and safety might have something to say about these things now. But you have to do it. Bob gets terrible rheumatism, doesn't he? Yeah, he had bad arthritis, rheumatism.

Arthritis, yeah. But he kind of got over it, I think, with his various other ill healths. That one took a back seat? Yeah. Okay, good. Are you healthy? I don't know. I think so.

I hope so. I'm due for another checkup. Yeah. I don't know I think so I hope so I'm due for another checkup yeah I had a big MOT about three or four years ago and that was all fine I think at least there was nothing major wrong so I think there were a few minor notes about cholesterol and things like that but because I didn't have you know because it wasn't like a death sentence I kind of skipped out going I'm fine I'm fine so I it's good isn't it when you get that i've got to go for an mri next week which i hate i can't do them i can't get in

the last time they put me in one and i said get me out of here quick it's terrifying i just couldn't do it so i ended up having to pay for it but they got me head which is all they wanted yeah and that's just a checkup you know i've got a what's called a vestibular schwannoma whoa it's like a head it's a tumor in my head yeah and it's because i've gone completely deaf 100 deaf in my left ear and i'll never come back but it's like it's like the size of a grape so they just have to keep an eye on it. So it's not malignant? No, it's benign. Okay. And your hearing won't come back after they've removed it?

They can't remove it? They can't remove it. Well, they can shrink it, or they can just leave it and keep an eye on it, and that's what they're doing. Did that not really distress you? Well, no, not really. I just sort of thought, yeah, I'd rather hear than not, but it's happened. So you just get on with it don't you

that's good I think I would have been a massive pain in the arse if that happened to me well I've just got used to it because I like going out bird watching and I never know where the birds are because I can hear them I don't know what direction an aeroplane flies over

or a car approaches I don't know where it is I had to throw away all my stereo LPs I was going to say an aeroplane flies over or a car approaches. I don't know where it is. Right. Okay. Cause I'm, I've only got, I had to throw away all my stereo LPs. I was going to say like, what about, have you got nothing in there whatsoever? No,

it's dead as a dot. Absolutely. Completely gone. It just seems to me like as someone who is absolutely ignorant about medicine and science and technology, I still think like, come on 2021 how complicated is an ear surely you can fix it just well what's done is like the eardrum and

your brain there's a nerve and that takes all the information from your ear to your brain and the tumor is right in between the nerve so it's gone ping and snapped it okay and you can't reattach nerves not at this stage in medical science but in the future probably the week after i perish great news for people who it's a simple operation to reattach an aural nerve seconds of your time and you'll be able to hear and see again and that i mean that's the thing isn't it unless things change absolutely disastrously that's what medical science will do at some point yeah in the not too distant future all these things that i think my dad my dad died of prostate cancer right and about a year later they were going here's the cure yeah well not the cure but you know he would have he would

have lived he would have survived i know all those people that all the people that died of aids i always think like jesus and and now it's you can live with it fine well yeah so i'm living with deafness yeah you're a hero can you imagine a life without stereo records? Terrible. No more will I hear Jimi Hendrix, well, the producer, doing Six Was Nine. It goes all over the place. Wow, wow, wow, wow. All that.

I thought it was great when people worked out stereo when it first happened. And they'd be going, let's just go. It's like we've got a new toy here. We're going to put it all over every record and phasing on drums yeah do the phasing on the drums and the stereo that's great isn't it yeah i love it and i love those very extreme mixes that george martin would do on the beatles and that uh paul botnik or whoever it was doing the Doors as well, you know, so you'd have all the vocals in one channel and everything else in the other one. And it was sort of mad, but it really works.

And when the Beatles did the reissues, the mono mixes, I didn't like them nearly as much. Well, that's all I can listen to now. Yeah, now it's a mono mix. All I have to throw everything out, all I've got left is Frank Ifield on mono. Oh. I have to throw everything out.

All I've got left is Frank Ifield on mono. I remember you. Wait, this is an advert for Squarespace. Every time I visit your website, I see success. Yes, success. The way that you look at the world makes the world want to say yes And I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop. These are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with Squarespace. Just visit squarespace.com slash Buxton for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, because you will want to launch,

use the offer code Buxton to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. Continue. Continue. Rosie, where are you? It's always a bit of a risk coming out with dog at this time of the day, you know, when the sun's going down. It's pretty much, well, it's gone down.

And there's just a few bits of light over to the west. And I can't see dog. Oh, yes, I can. A little blurry, hairy bullet emerging from the gloom and loping towards me. She's had a bad eye. Actually, she had, first the left eye was bad and then the right eye was bad, but we had some drops that cleared that up pretty well. But she had to wear a inflatable collar. It used to be the cone for that kind of thing, which nobody enjoyed, least of all dog. But the inflatable, it's a bit like one of those inflatable neck pillows that you can get for traveling. It works quite well to stop her scratching away at the eye when it's under repair.

Anyway, that's rosy news. Thanks very much indeed to Jim Moyer for talking to me there, giving up his time, letting me come and visit him at his house out in Kent. Yeah, it was wonderful to be back in an actual room with someone. We were both fully vaccinated.

I've had COVID. So it was all very responsible. And all in all, it was a really fun trip. I hope you enjoyed listening to that conversation. A couple of clarifications, qualifications, whatever you want to call them. My producer Seamus said about AIDS, I made a comment about people living with AIDS. Seamus says, worth saying people are no longer dying of AIDS in the developed world. They are living with HIV, a manageable chronic disease. Video games. When I was editing this episode and listening back, I thought, actually, maybe I should clarify because it sounds as if I said, well, I thought, actually, maybe I should clarify, because it sounds as if I said, well, I think,

you know, no disrespect to gamers and the people in the industry, but I think video games are a total waste of time. What I actually meant was that I feel that's my unreasonable prejudice. Like, I feel guilt after I have a long video game session. I love video games, and they have been a wonderful bonding experience for me and my children and my brother, all of whom I've had some very wonderful, memorable times playing Bomberman and Pikmin and Bomberman and Pikmin and Donkey Kong and Crash Bandicoot and all that stuff. But I still have this thing and I know it's staffed. Also, there are more and more studies coming out pointing out all the positive effects there are for video games.

I've actually put a link to an article on the Mental Floss website outlining 15 surprising benefits of playing video games. Some of which are more convincing than others, I have to say. And yeah, you know, they could definitely help you with all sorts of things. You know, getting into pipes, jumping up for coins, jumping on turtles. These are not very up-to-date references, sorry. All right, that's it for this week's podcast.

Thank you very much once again to Jim Weier for his time. Thanks to Seamus Murphy Mitchell very very much indeed, for his work on this episode and the edit and his ongoing production support. Thanks, Seamus. Thanks to Helen Green, who does the artwork for this podcast. Thanks to ACAST for all their help. And thanks, I would say most of all, to you. You listen right to the end. You're slow to judge, kind, open-minded, thoughtful. Whenever I meet you, I just think, how did I get so lucky? This is starting to sound sarcastic now, but I do actually think all those things. And that's why I'm going to lean sarcastic now but I do actually think all those things and that's why I'm going

to lean towards you I washed earlier this week and so I'm I smell pretty good although I'm not sure because I still can't really smell and in the most respectful way possible I'm just going to embrace you and give you a quick hug, if that's okay. Till next time, please take care. I love you. Bye! Bye. Thank you.