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)

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. For most of the time Dad was living with us I was working on another failed pilot. It was one that got quite close to becoming an actual TV show, so the pressure was on to deliver several scripts. In practice, that meant I’d spend several hours a day staring at my computer, not writing scripts and feeling that I ought to be making the most of the time I had left with Dad. You were an early adopter of podcasting. Do you get fed up with all these Johnny-come-lately copycats?Nigel was an older dad and had a very old-school way of dealing with the world,” says Cornish, who has known Buxton since he was 13. “The way he flirted with waitresses, the way he talked about wine – it was really funny. Then he would fly off the handle, and that was funnier to me than it was to Adam.” We are talking in the flat attached to Buxton’s recording studio, which is filled with his father’s furniture. Nigel died in 2015, several months after he came to live with Buxton and his family. Something of a hoarder, his oldest son, who “definitely shares that tendency”, can’t bear to throw away his father’s things. So, on a lovely summer’s day, the two of us sit in what is undeniably an old person’s flat, my feet on a needlepoint footrest. Behind Buxton is a bookcase filled with his father’s books. All around us are photos of Nigel. “I thought, well, this could be a cool place for my children to hang out,” he says, but then adds, “I’m worried it’s slightly mad that I’m building this weird museum in here.”

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.

Recently I watched an Adam and Joe show on the 4Player and was surprised that his dad appeared on the show. I mean, his dad must have been alright to have been willing to be on his son’s comedy TV show playing a posh, grumpy old man doing unlikely things for the audience’s amusement. 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.”

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.

The best autobiographies to read in 2023

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 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. 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. 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. I was three or perhaps four years old when I realised that I had been born into the wrong body, and should really be a girl,” she writes. “I remember the moment well, and it is the earliest memory of my life.” What follows is a highly evocative sentence, that hints at the beauty of the writing to come: “I was sitting beneath my mother’s piano, and her music was falling around me like cataracts, enclosing me as in a cave.”

Later I may have been aware that the same two geezers had a show on radio six music but never managed to tune in. Only much later, in the era of the podcast did Buxton reappear. Technological advances meant The Adam Buxton podcast could be saved in Spotify and played on the car stereo. On long journeys my wife (my wife) and I could be entertained and informed while having our spirits lifted as we sing along to the insanely catchy jingles, "give me little smile and a thumbs up, nice little pat when me bums up" is a personal favorite. When I was little I thought Dad was just the absolute best guy around: clever, handsome, funny and successful. He was a columnist and travel editor on the Sunday Telegraph and I loved travelling with him, seeing him charm hotel managers, flight attendants and heads of tourism who fell over themselves to do his bidding. In those days, no problem was too big for Dad to solve and no opportunity to make our lives more exciting was missed. But just before he had zoned out completely, Dad slowly reached out his arm, took my hand and brought it to his face. “He probably wants me to wipe his mouth or scratch his ear or something,” I thought, but to my surprise he gave my hand a kiss. Oh shit! I thought. This is it. Closure time! The raciest autobiographies are frequently indiscreet, the most engaging may name-drop with wild abandon, and the best stand on the quality of their writing, regardless of the subject matter. Some are ghost-written, granted, but so long as the voice sounds authentic and the contents are true, does that matter? 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.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. 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.” 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