OFF THE RAILS? I’VE NEVER BEEN ON THEM!
Daily Express Thursday September 29 2016
HAS one of Britain’s favourite TV stars gone bonkers? Nothing should really surprise us about Noel Edmonds, considering that 10 million viewers once tuned into BBC One on Saturday nights to watch him perform with Mr Blobby, a six foot tall pink plastic companion. But Noel’s uncanny knack of tapping deep into our sense of silliness has now got some people questioning his sanity.
It’s all because he has launched a motivational phone service for pets. If your cat, dog, hamster, mouse or whatever is anxious or depressed, Noel will give it a call and cheer it up. In the first four hours he received 2,000 emails from pet owners and demand has soared since last week when Noel counselled a cat live on air on the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2.
Twitter went crazy as people posted pictures of pets with funny captions. One man tweeted: “That bloody Noel Edmonds just had a chat with my chicken and now it thinks it’s a cat.” A woman wrote: “Noel Edmonds still hasn’t phoned my dog… If he’d rung, she’d have mentioned it. She’s very excited.”
Another referred to the imaginary village from where Noel’s TV shows were supposedly broadcast: “Hello cat, this is Noel Edmonds. How can I help?” “Well Noel, I’ve got a Crinkly Bottom.”
But not everyone was convinced Noel, 67, was being tongue-incheek. A lot of people were concerned he had “lost the plot” as they put it. One tweeted: “Noel Edmonds has just realised the flaw in his new business plan. Not many pets own phones.” One posted: “Hamsters: Wheel Or No Wheel?” Another said: “Is it OK that Noel Edmonds is being taken seriously as a cat whisperer?”
In an extraordinary move yesterday Noel was forced to issue a statement about “losing the plot”, saying: “What plot? Someone accused me of having ‘gone off the rails’ but I’ve never been on them hence the success and happiness I enjoy on a daily basis.
“I always have a giggle. Too many people take the living experience too seriously. What’s the point… if we can’t be positive, have fun and make the world a better place?”
AND he revealed he has decided to bring forward plans to launch the world’s first radio station exclusively for animals – Positively Pets – and hopes to be on air by Christmas. “I’m inviting pet lovers to send in their audio messages for their loved ones and we will broadcast them plus music requests and ‘special relaxing tones’ for pets left at home alone,” he says. All with a straight face, of course.
Noel, a headmaster’s son from Ilford in Essex, shot to fame in the early 1970s when he became a Radio 1 DJ and hosting Top Of The Pops on TV led to him getting his own hugely popular children’s TV series in 1976 called Multi-Coloured Swap Shop. In 1986 he moved to MAVERICK: Noel, who admits to enjoying a ‘giggle’, hopes to harness his positive outlook to benefit animals prime time Saturday night TV with The Late, Late Breakfast Show, followed by Noel’s Saturday Roadshow and Noel’s House Party.
In 1999, House Party was axed and Noel moved to Channel 4 to host Deal Or No Deal, which made him one of British TV’s most highly paid stars. His new pets venture follows the news that Deal Or No Deal will end after the latest series which starts on October 10 although sources say he will continue to make game shows for Channel 4.
Already his pet counselling service has its own website and on it Noel writes: “What would life be like without our feathered, furry, scaly friends? Well the answer is – pretty miserable. So I want to make these precious chums feel important and appreciated.
“It’s amazing how a simple brief phone call can pick up the spirits of the most dejected hamster, the most stressed goldfish and the most neurotic cat. Allow me to call your pet and offer positive words of appreciation and motivation.”
Noel, who used his TV earnings to develop a property portfolio that included a £2million manor house in Devon – which he would fly himself home to in his own helicopter, call sign G-NOEL – has never been far from controversy.
For years he has been a believer in spiritualism and the concept of cosmic ordering, a subject he was introduced to by his reflexologist, and he has written a book called Positively Happy: Cosmic Ways To Change Your Life. Noel says he’s constantly accompanied by two melon-sized “spiritual energy” balls which appear over his shoulders and which he believes to be the spirits of his dead parents. Last year he claimed the greatest problem facing humanity was “electrosmog” caused by wi-fi and other systems which were destroying “our natural electro-magnetic fields”. He also said he believed death was impossible because the body was merely a container for “a universal energy”. When he dies, Edmonds believes “my energy will return to where it came from – part of a massive, incomprehensible universal web of energy”.
In June on ITV’s Good Morning he revealed he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer three years ago but had been cured by an electro-magnetic box. “I then had my tumour destroyed by sound waves,” he said.
Noel’s positivity for pets stems from his belief in the power of the cosmos. He has produced a phone app which he says allows people to place orders asking for their wishes to come true.
He says: “We must never forget that the cosmos exists solely to help those who want to help themselves. It is an incredibly powerful force and a wonderful friend and ally for all who adopt a positive approach to life.” Maybe you should read that to your pet in case Noel’s too busy to call.