Which came first? The chicken or the egg? Richard Madeley or Alan Partridge? Are they actually just the same person? No one knows.
Madeley, owner of the most lusted after locks on early morning telly and a recent propensity for calling women darling and sweetheart on live TV, has a skill for storytelling; ridiculous or otherwise.
According to The Sun, veteran broadcaster Richard was rumoured to be Piers Morgan’s permanent replacement on GMB. He was to take his seat at the GMB presenting desk in front of the watchful eye of St Paul’s Cathedral on the screen behind Monday to Friday. Piers, of course, has left for the Rupert Murdoch empire - but ITV insists that Richard’s still just a guest host.
(At this point in proceedings, lets take a moment for both Richard and Piers’ long-suffering co-host Susanna Reid, whose ability to keep a straight face deserves a BAFTA, TRIC and NTA in its own right.)
Who could forget the seminal 2012 classic,
The piece de resistance sees Richard climb over a wall into the squat, when a cameraman cries, “Don’t ruin your best jeans, Richard.” Safely on the other side of the wall, a defiant Richard replies: “THESE AREN’T MY BEST JEANS”.
He then asks the group, who have shared the information that they bin-dive for food: “What’s your supermarket skip of choice then? I quite like shopping at Waitrose.”
Here’s some of Richard’s other best lines:
On war crimes: “Obviously, we had the Nuremberg trials after the war and we hanged quite a few Nazis and imprisoned a lot of others and we let them out eventually. But we didn’t go after the Hitler Youth as far as I’m aware. We didn’t go after the Hitler Youth – we only went after adults who served in the Hitler regime. And that’s something to reflect on, I think.”
On quicksand: "You look at the beach and you think, ‘Ahh, pretty pretty, lovely golden sand, that’s safe.’ Not in certain parts of the country… quicksand!"
On compassion for pets: “What price do you put on your pet's care? Is there a point where you just say, 'Too expensive, the dog has to die?’”
On self seasoning: “I have salt in my bag. Increasingly in restaurants they won’t give you salt because it’s bad for the heart. I carry a little vial of salt, because if you’re in a restaurant, and you order the soup, say, and it comes and it’s under-salted, why would you sit there for the next 15 minutes sipping under-salted soup?”
On Me Too: "And that's one of the questions of the day. To touch or not to touch? When is it appropriate and when is it not? We'll be talking about that very soon."
On emotion: [To an emotional guest upon meeting paramedics who saved him in an accident] “Stop crying! This is supposed to make you happy! Anyway after the break, the biggest dog in the UK. And he really is big. Don’t miss it!”
As he’s pretty much a dead cert to go into this year’s I’m A Celeb, it’ll be worth watching for those daily Madeley inspirational quotes alone.