Suggs

July 2010

I LOVE football. And I must say I’m rather bereft at this particular time, in this very small window between the World Cup and the Premier League starting again.

I am a Chelsea fan and I do go. Not like I used to - I used to go every game -- because in the last two years I’ve been busy with the band.

I thought the World Cup was dreary on the whole. It never really sparked in to life. There were brief moments from Argentina and the Germans. Obviously we were shambolic, an absolute disgrace.

My missus has gone away this week and I’m just watching any old (rubbish) on the television. I keep turning to Sky Sports in the full knowledge that there’s no football on but I’m still doing it, hoping there’s going to be something on. It’s like being a drug addict. I’m sweating on the sofa, watching Come Dine With Me.

I’ve been asked to go on Come Dine With Me, of course I have. I’ve been asked to go on every crappy reality TV show. The last one was I’m A Celebrity Traffic Warden. Yeah, that’d be something really lovely to spend the afternoon doing.

On a Saturday morning I’ll work out what football’s going to be on the telly and have a big fry up. Then me and the missus will go for a walk on Hampstead Heath or Primrose Hill.

I am one for DVD box sets but they just sit there. I never watch the things. I’ve got The Wire, the last part of The Sopranos still to go and Alfred Hitchcock. The Wire’s the one that’s really bugging me because everyone says it’s a must watch and I’ve 25 hours of the thing. I’m halfway through series two and it’s got me for sure but it’s finding the time.

We eat out quite a lot. One of the great things about London is its cultural diversity and you can eat anything, any day of the week, from Vietnamese to... the other lot.

I’m very fond of Dim Sum, which is like a Chinese luncheon thing. There’s a big place in Soho called the Chuen Cheng Ku and it’s about the size of Wembley Arena. They come around with all these trollies and you’re not sure what’s on any of them, you just point at stuff.

I go to the gym now and again, when I can. I do like it but my discipline is all over the gaff.

When we’re on tour, that’s about two hours of aerobic exercise every night and that does keep you fit. I’m very happy with the state of my health, given the pounding my body’s had.

I live on the outskirts of Camden Town, I’ve been there for the past 35 years, and there are lots of fantastic venues, where you get lots of new bands. But I don’t think for a man approaching 50 it’s my role to be in every nook and cranny of modern culture. But I like to hear new things. I’ve a couple of daughters in their twenties and they’ll say ‘dad, there are a couple of great bands on’ and I’ll go and have a look.

My perfect weekend would be a fry-up, then rowing on the boating lake at Regent’s Park, with a bottle of white wine on a piece of string. Then I’d watch Chelsea at Stamford Bridge beat Man United 10-0. I’d come back and we’d go and see a show or a band or the pictures. On Sunday I’d play football in the morning with some of my mates. I’d score a hat-trick and be carried shoulder high down Camden High Street. I’d have three jugs of beer, go home and my wife will have cooked a feast of a Sunday dinner. Everyone in the street would be in my house and we’d carry on until four in the morning.

It’s happened before - but not all in the same weekend.

Madness have announced a date at Rock City on Tuesday December 7, with Paul Heaton as their special guest. Tickets are £35, call 0871 310 0000.