Going to Sea in a Sieve: The Autobiography (41 page)

24. Bashing out copy at the
NME
. I’ve never smoked so must be affecting the cigarette to impress the girl behind. It worked. We didn’t know it then but we were to spend the rest of our lives together.

25. With Peter Cook in 1979. We appear to have settled in some kind of Arabian Nights Grotto or possibly waiting our number to be called in a Marrakech cat house. (
Tom Sheehan
)

26. In Los Angeles to hang about with Michael Jackson. Here I am showing the strain with his PR Judy. This living-for-pleasure-alone racket was showing few signs of tailing off.

27. Very tired on Ian Dury’s tour bus. It’s fair to assume that, though journalistically diligent, I had been wildly caning it. (
Tom Sheehan
)

28. My first TV publicity picture, for the series
Twentieth Century Box
. Theme-tune writer John Foxx and producer Janet Street Porter join me in dressing down. (
LWT
)

29. In the lounge awaiting the flight to Miami and a rendezvous with Earth, Wind & Fire. Wendy and I were running away, 1981. (
Anton Corbijn
)

30. The Runaways, Miami, 1981.

31. By the power of flim-flam alone I’m now in Honolulu. Here, I’m saying hello to my aghast bank manager.

32. Wendy and I, impossibly young and impossibly broke and yet, most impossibly of all, in Hawaii. What me, worry?

Endnotes

1
With the possible exception of Patti Smith’s
Radio Ethiopia
.

2
I suddenly realize this sentence may read a little peculiar. However it is perfectly sensible. Our family dog, Blackie, a lovely mongrel with an unimaginative name, was quite the most miraculous animal I have ever known. He could both open the front door upon request – by hooking his front paw under the door handle and walking backwards – as well as knock at it using his snout after he’d had enough of roaming the estate. We would let him out first thing in the morning and be alerted to his return by the most furious clatter at the letterbox. Passers-by would stagger at seeing such canine genius. As for his door-opening skills, visitors never tired of witnessing the feat and, to be fair, Blackie never refused a performance. The only exception he made was with my sister Sharon. He would
not
allow her access. ‘That bloody dog hates me,’ she would say as he lay on his mat in the passage ignoring her calls to him, no matter how endearingly she cooed. ‘Come on, Blackie, let me in, there’s a lovely dog. Good boy, come on, let me in, eh? Oh, you awkward sod!’ The family took our dog’s extraordinary talent, which today would surely be a YouTube sensation, as perfectly normal behaviour. So there it is: our front door key for fifteen years was our dog. Who also used the doorknocker to be let in. Astounding but 100 per cent true.

Danny Baker is a comedy writer, journalist and Radio DJ. He currently presents his Saturday morning show on BBC Radio 5 Live and is a regular face on TV. He still lives in south-east London.

A Phoenix ebook

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Ebook first published in 2012 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
This ebook published in 2013 by Phoenix

© Danny Baker 2012

The author and publisher are grateful to the following for permission to quote:
Sony/ATV Music Publishing, ‘Good Year for the Roses’ (Chesnut);
Paramount Pictures,
Alfie
(1966); and
Universal Studios,
Horse Feathers
(1932).

The right of Danny Baker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-0-2978-6342-7

The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA

An Hachette UK Company

www.orionbooks.co.uk

Table of Contents

Praise

Title page

Dedication

Contents

Preface

When the Saints Go Marching In

Skulduggery

Getting Out There