Awoken by the soft carress of BILL ODDIE!

Marvellous Chough Vivvy

As far as I know, floppy-haired patriot Tim Brooke-Taylor has never fallen on hard times to the extent he's had to take on a milk round. But if I was woken up at 6 o'clock one morning by a peak-capped ex-Goodie dropping a crate of milk bottles as he fell off his comedy tandem, I would show no mercy.

Brooke-Taylor could squeal all he wants that Oddie's his friend and he'd get him on to me. I'd be straight down the dairy to report his lack of respect for the job, and it would be back to Radio 4 panel games and microscopic listening figures for the hapless so-called "comedian".

I met Bill at a recent Red Kite spotting get together in Derbyshire, after a sighting he said "I'm off to Tweet about this"
Half an hour later when we returned to our Range Rovers for lunch Bill was atop a fence post with his hands tucked under his armpits,
twisting his head from side to side making bird noise .

Former Blur frontman Damon Albarn, seeing the celebrity status that bird watching had bestowed on Oddie, thought "Aye, Aye I'll dip my bread into that gravy train"

He penned the seminal birdwatching work Parklife with the lyrics  “I feed the pigeons, I sometimes feed the sparrows too/ It gives me a sense of enormous well-being…”

Oddie was by all accounts incandescent especially when he found out wannabe twitcher Albarn's work had outsold his own meisterstuck 'Funky Gibbon' in a canter

A late night chat from Bill was all that was necessary to inform baby faced Albarn that the Bird Watching world wasn't big enough for two A listers.

Albarn left. He was subsequently seen to have had extensive dental work

"Call yerself fooken Gorillaz?" Oddie is reported to have asked. "This is a fooken gorilla ..."

Whereupon the Funky Gibbon frontman went literally ape in front of a whimpering Albarn, scratching armpits, grunting loudly and butting him straight in the head.

A true story about Oddie,he's spent literally years of his life in lunatic asylums,and on one occasion in early 2000 he literaly trashed  a private psyco health clinic and needed 6 staff members to subue him!

The man is indeed more powerful than the myth,though no wonder his career went down after doing that naked birdwatching guff yrs back.

he suffers from depression.

Bill inspired Eddie Van Halen's brown M&M’s episode after forcing several BBC "runners" including a young Emma Forbes to remove all linseed from a half ton delivery of wild bird seed.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgEtz2Muf3E&feature=channel_video_title

Oddies mental health problems evidently stem back to a Faustian like deal he made with the devil some yrs back.Such was Oddies determination to ensure G.Garden didn't work in mainstream tv he sold his soul to the devil,and true enough Garden had to scratch a living on obscure panel shows,re-runs on what's my line and reading large hardbook books.Meanwhile Oddie nature franchisees hit gold! Though 3 months a yr in the nuthouse was a high price to pay for this trade off.

You call it a nuthouse, Oddie calls it a nesting box.

I wouldn't like to be one of the staff who has to be on hand with the butterfly net and strait jacket during one of his "depressed" episodes. Imagine trying to drag the foaming berserker into his padded cell for the night.

A wet business since he is into watersports.

What’s rude about a body?

Got to be careful what you say about Oddie as his bessie mate is legendary BBC hardcase Peter Purvis. Oddie had discovered Purvis on the Blue Peter set, sobbing about losing his budgie. Oddie volunteered to reside in Peter's budgie cage until he found a replacement and Purvis never forgot his act of kindness.

Thought this was going to include a reference to Valerie Singleton !

I have occasionally enjoyed waking up to the dulcet tones of a female woodpecker though sadly not for a while.  :(

Put some nuts out to attract them.