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

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I feel a strong temptation to lie and list some that make me look more intelligent. But if I’m honest, I love Athletico Mince, Richard Herring, The Horne Section and a Canadian one called Stop Podcasting Yourself. The hosts remind me of a Canadian me and Joe. Ramble Book is about parenthood, boarding school trauma, arguing with your partner, bad parties, confrontations on trains, friendship, wanting to fit in, growing up in the 80s, dead dads, teenage sexual anxiety, failed artistic endeavours, being a David Bowie fan; and how everything you read, watch and listen to as a child forms a part of the adult you become. Plus, there are clear benefits to being able to relive the past. Buxton always knew his father was baffled by his interests – that was the whole joke of BaaadDad. Recently, he has been watching old outtakes from The Adam And Joe Show. “We shot absolute hours of stuff with my dad, making him go to places that he hated, and he was always game. It was heroic. I used to think, ‘Why isn’t he more proud of me?’ But he was proud. I can see that now.” 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.

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? Because we spend so much time and effort making sure that the state of our being is what it ought to be, and it becomes very unsettling if you start suspecting that it doesn’t very much matter.”

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A few weeks ago, he started therapy for the first time. “I felt like, ok, I don’t think I’m coping very well with this and I’m a bit worried that I’m spiralling into areas that are just making me unhappy and that’s no good.’ I don’t mind for myself so much, but my children are young and I don’t want their teenage years to be full of memories of me just being a misery.” When I was confident that he was OK and through the worst of the morphine fugue, I asked if he’d like me to put on Air Force One with Harrison Ford. Dad liked Harrison Ford. We watched Indiana Jones one Christmas towards the end of the 80s when Dad was starting work on his novel, The Proving Ground. “That’s who should play me when they turn my book into a film,” said Dad.

So, he did what he does best and talked about it, on his podcast. He started The Adam Buxton Podcast, in which he interviews comedians, actors, writers and musicians over the course of an hour’s “ramble chat”, almost exactly five years ago. Over time, ever so gently, listeners learn as much about Buxton’s life and worldview (and dog) as they do about that of his guests. He figured he would have to talk about his mother eventually and he would rather do it with his erstwhile comedy partner, oldest friend and “go-to glib-chat guy”, Joe Cornish. The Adam and Joe Show (Photo: Channel 4) Buxton wrote this book after the deaths of his father and of David Bowie, and his life as a Bowie superfan is a fascinating thread running through the book. The triumph though is Buxton’s account of his relationship with his father, who appeared as “BaaadDad” on The Adam And Joe Show.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.”

At the age of 17, after a childhood in a foster family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given his birth certificate. He learns that his real name was not Norman. It was Lemn Sissay. He was British and Ethiopian. And he finds out that his mother has been pleading for his safe return to her ever since his birth. Lea Ypi is professor of political theory at the London School of Economics, but she grew up in Albania during the years of communist rule. Her grandfather had been prime minister for just over a year in the early 1920s, and was assassinated in December 1940. Those facts – and the detrimental impact the family’s association with the former prime minister would have – were kept from her during her childhood. 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.” Yes,” replied Pa softly before continuing, as if to himself, “Occasionally, I feel that I’m absolutely irrelevant.” The confluence of the Delaware River and Neshaminy Creek, in Croydon, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Jana Shea/Alamy

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Buxton’s emotional openness is surely partly a reaction against his father; despite being sent to boarding school when he was nine, I have rarely met a man less afraid to show his vulnerabilities. Another reaction against his father is Buxton’s marriage. He and Sarah have been married for 19 years, after meeting through another school friend. “She looked like Sean Young in Blade Runner, and we were both a little oversensitive, so we bonded. Also, she’s tall. Joe’s tall, Louis’s tall, I do seem to be attracted to tall people because I’m short.” It was Sarah who forced him to look at how harsh his father could be to his mother. “At first I was defensive, but then I understood that she just doesn’t want me to turn out like that,” Buxton says. 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.