Ah, Bill Bailey, mate, you didn’t: you didn’t just preface My Animals, and Other Animals, a memoir told through every animal you’ve ever met, with “they teach us lessons about loyalty and responsibility, and even loss”. You sound like a trainee vicar doing a pet funeral service.
The much-loved comedian, nature show host, paddle-boarder and national treasure doesn’t over-trouble himself with what’s original, so long as it’s true. He’s much more of a questions guy than an answers guy. Why did his mum dress him in a bow tie to go to the beach when he was five? Why, in early adulthood, did he go camping in Sellafield, rather than somewhere picturesque, or at least less radiation-adjacent? Why is it so hard to spot an otter? Why do badgers like peanut butter? Why do dogs hate getting their photo taken? He’s largely happy to name the mystery and let it stand.
Badgers probably like peanut butter, by the way, because it’s not as if they can go to the shops. As for dogs and photographs, well, maybe the tone of our voices stresses them out. “OK, stay. No … she’s moved. Stay! OVER HERE … She’s not looking … Get a bit of ham.” Relatable, endearing; which of us hasn’t had the “get some ham” conversation?
Bailey insists throughout that there is no method to his accretion of animals; he’s just one of those guys who ends up with a pack of dingo-like dogs, two chameleons who hate each other and some Flemish giant rabbits. You know that guy! It starts with a rescue guinea pig, and before you know it, he has a peacock. I strongly suspect the invisible hand of Kristin, Bailey’s wife. She first arrives with her patterdale terrier, Rocky, when Bill is just a man minding his own business, living on a mouldy houseboat, and is a constant source thereafter of support, plus creatures.
The standup version of Bailey appears quite regularly, in moments of delighted, sesquipedalian overstatement. He and Kris are on their way to see a hairless cat they want, and he’s been instructed to scrub up, as the breeder is auditioning them. They arrive to find a strong smell of cat urine, which you might think is par for the course, but you’d be wrong. “I recall that no birds were singing within about 500 yards of the house, nor was there any living thing in the immediate vicinity. Trees had died, there was no vegetation. It was a nuclear fallout zone of moggie micturition. The house would have had a thermal imprint visible from Saturn.”
You could spend some happy time, if you were that way inclined, wondering which of his many dogs – between the chancer, the bolter, the beauty, the other bolter – was Bailey’s true spirit animal, but realistically, he’s packing enough spirit for all of them, springing out new enthusiasms like a guy with a coat full of watches. They rescue a hell of a lot of dogs from Bali, who spend the rest of their lives pounding unauthorised across the streets of west London, presumably looking for Bali.
You can tell a true naturalist from a hobbyist by the fact that they can get madly smitten even by animals they can’t cuddle – so, hello bats, cockroaches, a tasselled wobbegong (that’s a kind of shark), two baby blackbirds, although the second, the one their cat didn’t kill, “needed constant care” (really though?). Bailey can find affection almost anywhere, however: he is convinced the koi carp are pleased to see him; is amazed at how attached you can become to a tortoise – “There’s something about their strangeness, their ancient, prehistoric deliberations, that is hugely endearing”. He can parse the difference between the emotional range of one parrot and another, and to be fair, he’s had a few (though you never really own them, “you are just their companion for a while”). Does this resolute zest for life ever get a bit much? Maybe for the cats. I bet the dogs love it.
• My Animals, and Other Animals by Bill Bailey is published by Quercus (£25). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
