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. While Buxton and Cornish have both found success individually, for a certain kind of fan (me), the real joy comes from listening to them talk to one another, as on their former XFM and 6 Music shows. They have the kind of joyful, natural conversational style that only comes from a 40-year friendship between two people on the same wavelength. They started making films together when they were teenagers – including my personal favourite, one of Buxton, Cornish and Theroux dancing to Groove Is In The Heart when they were about 20. 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. That’s an interesting question. Would he be super-woke or would he be appearing on Dave Rubin’s YouTube show? Would he and Jordan Peterson be bemoaning the excesses of cancel culture? Possibly. Bowie did a few cancellable things in his life. But I do miss him. When I go on stage my script is a safety net. With writing a book, there’s nothing: you’re tortured by the possibilities

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. It wasn’t his first TV appearance, but Adam Buxton hit the big time in 1996, with Channel 4’s The Adam and Joe Show. Since then, he’s been a regular on BBC3, Xfm, the Edinburgh Festival, films and Eight out of Ten Cats Does Countdown’s dictionary corner. To many, he’ll be best known for his long-running podcast, with a simple formula – an unhurried, rambling chat – that attracts guests of impressive calibre. You don’t need to scroll far through the archive to come across Joe Lycett, Robbie Williams, Zadie Smith, Derren Brown, David Sedaris, Michael Palin, Frank Skinner, and skaters Torvill and Dean. The mix is as eclectic as it is entertaining. 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.” They had a more upbeat conversation on standby in case the episode was too “dreary”, but in the end Buxton broadcast the original and was inundated with messages from listeners. “I was very glad,” he says quietly. “That was that thing I always really wanted… a group of people who really get where I’m at.” The content covers his days at boarding school, the family’s travels (his dad was the Travel Editor at the Telegraph, so holidays were exotic), discovering music, discovering girls, never living up to his dad’s expectations, his days at Westminster where he met Joe and Louis Theroux and others. It’s whimsically done, and admirably honest. The only bits that fell flat for me were the music deep dives - only because I didn’t have the obsessions that he had with David Bowie and others. The bits on friends, school tribes, formative experiences and eighties culture were great.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…’” 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. I find it a bit hard to get my head around the fact that Adam is now fifty years old, much as I struggle to get my head around the fact that I'm now forty-six, but hey, it happens to us all, I suppose. Writing a book seems a natural thing to do at the time Adam has reached in his life. He's now married with three kids, and the death of his father (the legendary BaaaaadDad) in 2015 provoked some reflection on his life. This book is the result, and it turned out to be a wonderful read. We went and sat in the living room. I made some tea and set it down for Dad with a couple of milk chocolate Hobnobs, hoping to refocus his mind on a simple pleasure. “Have you ever dunked a biscuit?” I asked, prepared for him to tell me that dunking biscuits was vulgar, barbaric or grotesque. I recommend Ramble Book... There are wonderful, melancholy passages about his father, and Bowie, and 80s nostalgia, perfect for those of us who get teary-eyed remembering the first time we heard Dexys Midnight Runners or whatever.' - Jon Ronson

The confluence of the Delaware River and Neshaminy Creek, in Croydon, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Jana Shea/Alamy Nigel Buxton is portrayed as an irascible but lovable figure during Adam’s childhood, who becomes more irascible and less lovable as the years go by. With its rugged fells, softly flowing streams, glittering tarns and wide open lakes, the Lake District is England’s most popular National Park. Covering 2,362 square kilometres of protected land, it’s still easy to find an isolated felltop to breathe in the fresh Cumbrian air and escape modern life here.” 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? 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.

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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.