Ramble Book: Musings on Childhood, Friendship, Family and 80s Pop Culture

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It’s an approach that listeners love: each new episode of the podcast will get around 200,000 listens upon release, then climb from there: some of the most popular episodes are now in the millions. His favourite guests are those who are “up for blathering and friendly”. He’s less keen on musicians. “The more technically gifted a musician, the less likely it seems that they are to be able to express themselves via speech.” A funny, self deprecating and moving autobiography that switches between Adam’s time caring for his elderly father and his pop culture saturated childhood in the 80s. The most emotionally effective parts (for me) were about Adam’s relationship with his father, Nigel, who is as rigid, conservative and snobbish as he is earnest and eloquent - trying to give his children a secure future the best way he knows. Father-son difficulties seem to be a common autobiographical thread (at least in works I’ve been reading e.g. Karl Ove Knausgaard) but in this case Adam managed to convey both the flaws and endearing qualities of a difficult father. Earned or not, Theroux has more than proved his right to grace our screens in the years since, through a series of groundbreaking documentaries exploring, and sometimes exposing, the less often represented. Even at school, Louis and Joe were the two funniest people to hang out with. I can see why he went down the serious documentary route – good for you, enjoy your Baftas – so it’s nice to showcase his stupid side. As a side benefit, the book introduced me (born in 1996) to some more obscure 80s music, through the playlists on Adam’s Spotify. The audiobook also generously includes a bonus podcast with Joe which was funny and genuinely sweet.

The confluence of the Delaware River and Neshaminy Creek, in Croydon, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Jana Shea/Alamy There’s never been a better time to get lost in a good book… so we’d love you to join the friendly Mirror Book Club community on Facebook. Members share thoughts on the current book of the month, post other recommendations and exchange book news and views. There are regular giveaways too. It’d be good for Rosie to sit down and have an honest chat with the local muntjac deer. Just so they can air their grievances and explain what it’s like being terrorised by a yappy little poodle-cross.

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This is Lemn’s story: a story of neglect and determination, misfortune and hope, cruelty and triumph. Mirror Book Club members have chosen My Name Is Why by Lemn Sissay as the latest book of the month. Our interview has very much turned into a ramble chat. When I first arrived at his house, I worried that Buxton was weighed down by the past. But now it feels more that he simply surrounds himself with happy memories; he loved his parents, he loves his friends – why shouldn’t he keep mementoes from them?

At the end of the audio version of Ramble Book, there is a conversation between the pair in which Cornish brings up that comment, which he had long forgotten: “I think I was probably looking for the most provocative answer. My brain issues the true standard answer and then thinks, well, that’s a bit boring, what would be more interesting?” You can hear Buxton gasp, re-evaluating 40 years of casual banter. “I think the relationship worked creatively because we are very different, but I never understood that,” he says now, smiling.He has always been “Mr Emotional”, as he puts it, whereas Cornish is more teasing, and at times on the radio you could hear Buxton’s hurt bafflement at his friend’s blunter comments. Buxton recalls that soon after they left school he asked Cornish if they’d still be friends in 10 years. “I don’t know, man, probably not,” he casually replied. Thirty years later, the comment burned enough for Buxton to put it in his book. Is there really a rivalry there? “When I joke, there’s always a grain of truth to it. But it’s so unimportant. I definitely had a long phase with Joe when I really did feel threatened and felt like people saw me as the failure. I thought, ‘Oh NO, I’m [the Fifth Beatle] Pete Best!’ But then I got over it. I’m sure it pops up, it’s bound to pop up, isn’t it?”

It’s not the first time Buxton Sr has figured in his work. On The Adam and Joe Show, Nigel appeared as BaaaDad, reviewing contemporary youth culture with high-handed bafflement (On Louise’s “Naked”: “It’s a fun tune, the dancing is very competent and she’s a fox”) . In Ramble Book, Buxton fleshes the caricature out. While Nigel appeared the “old-school toff”, after he died Buxton discovered that Nigel’s father, Gordon, had been a servant. The family he worked for sent Nigel to grammar school, from where he went to boarding school, then Oxford. Today, as the host of The Daily Show, Noah has been named as one of the most powerful people in New York media. To have reached such heights after so difficult a start in life makes this story all the more remarkable. He plays me – with delight – a new jingle he’s been working on. It’s about Covid-19 and contains the lyric “I have to wear a mask because IIIIIII am toxic/ Terrible things are spilling out of me…” When he played it to his eldest son, Natty, he told him it could be funnier. “And I had to resist the temptation to say, ‘You don’t know anything! Play me some of your funny jingles, 18-year-old!’ I didn’t say that, I just said, ‘Yeah, you’re probably right…’” I ask, finally, what his father would have made of Ramble Book. “He would have thought it was, as he said about many of my efforts, pretty rubbishy.” He is still not sure whether he should have been so honest; it was certainly not his father’s way. “He thought that, if you just keep that upper lip stiff, then you’ll be surprised by how much you can cope with. There’s some truth to that but what won out for me was a sense that it is valuable to talk about difficult things,” says Buxton. “I’d rather be talking than not.”

Has his father’s obsession with money rubbed off on him? “No, the reverse is probably true: I don’t think about money enough. I’ve never really wanted to be rich, that’s never, ever been a motivating factor for me at all. I felt sorry for my dad and although I was very grateful to him for the sacrifices he made, which meant I met so many people that were important to me. I resent… I thought he gave up too much. And I would rather have had him around. I mean, I think I would? Maybe I wouldn’t have got a book out of it.” The case with me is, I have no relevance. If it weren’t for the fact that there would be a response from you, I wouldn’t speak. Because that would remind me that I was the only person left in the world and that would remind me that I didn’t exist.” It’s impossible not to fall in love with Morris’ style. That her subject matter is one so rarely discussed makes this short autobiography all the more engaging. Jan Morris was born James Humphry Morris in Somerset in 1926, and died in Wales in 2020. She underwent gender reassignment surgery in 1972, after travelling to Morocco for the procedure. Two years later, she wrote Conundrum, in which she told the story of her transition. It was re-released in 2018.