censored of sidcup

THE ticket-machine button marked Sid-cup at Charing Cross station spells it out.

No first-class tickets on this route. As my Australian friends say, that 'd be right. But there is at least one haven of classiness in the borough:the residence of Mr Garry Bushell, pundit, presenter, part-time actor, rock-band manager and now author. His street is not a picture of leafy suburbia:to call it that would be to slander Sidcup. But it 's a quiet, agreeable spot, and the Bushell house is a handsome Edwardian number in warm, red brick. A blasphemous thought crosses my mind:it 's just the sort of London house which leads you to expect stripped pine floors and ethnic coffee tables.

Thankfully not. Inside, there is pub-style wallpaper and a front room that looks like . . . a pub.

Garry has installed an old-fashioned polished wood bar in the corner.

There are vintage Double Diamond barrels with Ken Dodd and Bernard Manning painted on the front.

Mine host wears the local uniform of combats, V-neck T-shirt and gold jewellery. He is greyer than his byline picture in The Sun, but slimmer and fitter than you 'd expect. He has a remarkable brow. Bushell could have modelled for a demon-eyes election poster fitting for a man who still stands pretty high in the demonology of the liberal classes. But if Garry is a demon, it 's one of the comic variety, the kind of incubus who likes to get ratted with his mates down the boozer.

Now Noel Edmonds has shaved off his beard, Bushell is one of the last bearded celebrities in England. Bushell had something to say about the shock Edmonds move in this Sun column:"Noel Edmonds has shaved off his beard for charity, "he wrote.

"How much more would they make if Jo Brand did the same?"

There, in two lines, you have the essence of Bushell. He is vulgar and sexist, loves seaside-postcard jokes and hates alternative comedians. He also likes a feud, and the one with Jo Brand has been going on for years. Yet Bushell is more than a little relieved his Brand gag made it to the page. He has endured the censor 's scissors more than once at the new-style Sun. "I still love it, "he says, for once choosing his words carefully. "But The Sun is a different creature now. "

It 's obvious that he misses the outrageous Eighties of Kelvin MacKenzie:it was, he says, "Dante 's Inferno then, Sleepy Hollow now ". It 's easy to see where an incubus would feel more at home.

Earlier this year, there were hints that Richard Desmond would lure him away from David Yelland 's user-friendly version of The Sun to the Express group.

He and Desmond are mates, and recently discussed launching a music magazine together. "I admire Richard 's drive, "says Bushell. "But if you play for

Manchester United, why move to Crystal Palace?"But what if Arsenal came in with a bid?It hasn 't escaped Bushell 's attention that The Mirror is without a TV pundit at present and it is short, he reckons, of good populist columnists. He is a fan of the editor, Piers Morgan.

There is a slight political problem with Bushell moving to New Labour 's most loyal paper: Bushell 's politics. In his own words he is "illiberal and patriotic ", a libertarian without a party. To others, he is a fellow-traveller of the far Right. He nearly sued the anti-Fascist magazine Searchlight (and settled out of court)and has been a regular target of Private Eye.

The stories refer to his involvement in oi!, the offshoot of punk that attracted a new breed of skinheads in the late Seventies and early Eighties.

Bushell claims that its far-Right image was undeserved. He has scars from having been beaten up at the 100 Club by neo-Nazis;and, covering them, a tattoo with the logo of the Jamaican reggae label, Trojan Horse. He calls himself a "disillusioned socialist ". He despises the retiring Tory MP John Townend ("a stupid old bigot ")but less for what he says than the fact he waited 30 years to say it.

Like many Rightwing pundits, he believes debate is choked by a "liberal elite "hell bent on disenfranchising the ordinary bloke.

But Richard Littlejohn has the political gig at The Sun, and what social commentary Bushell has boiling up within him has to be fitted around his larky TV pieces.

The frustration shows in his novel. There are plenty of Bushell hobbyhorses galloping through the pages of The Face, his nasty Sopranos/Lock, Stock potboiler about psychopathic gangsters and undercover cops. He describes the main theme as the frustrations the old breed of CID man feels in the politically correct, post-Lawrence- enquiry Met.

That said, I suspect Bushell witnessed as much violence in Kelvin MacKenzie 's newsroom as on the mean streets of Bermondsey, where The Face is set. He is closer to the caricature of the south London nice bloke portrayed by Timothy Spall in Secret and Lies than a Ray Win- stone hard man. Louis Theroux, BBC2 's investigative humorist, wanted to follow Bushell around for a programme. Bushell asked his readers if he should agree.

"They all said:'Who is Louis Theroux?'"he says with a huge laugh. In the end he thought it wouldn 't have been much of a show. "The thing is, "he says, "I 'm disappointingly normal. "

The Face, by Garry Bushell, is published by John Blake, 9. 99.

Mark Jones is editor of High Life magazine.

Copyright 2001
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