Comedian Vic Reeves has revealed how he was once picked up while hitchhiking by a naked lorry driver.

But he didn’t realise until he got in and caught sight of the “bulbous” man sitting completely starkers in the driving seat.

The star, real name Jim Moir, says: “When I was young I used to hitchhike everywhere. I remember once getting in a lorry and the driver was completely naked.

“As soon as I got in I realised and said, ‘I’m only going about half a mile down the road’.

“I didn’t want to ask why he was naked – it would only have led to an explanation and I didn’t want one.

“I can only imagine I felt very tense. He was late 40s and bulbous, lightbulb-shaped.

“Fortunately, I don’t remember glancing over and getting a private view – I probably just looked out the window.”

Jim has teamed up with music legend and pal of 35 years Jools Holland for a new ­transport-related podcast called Jools and Jim’s Joyride, where they invite guests to share their favourite travel tales.

But with these two at the helm, it’s more a collection of funny memories and stories held together by the loosest of threads.

Jim, 62, says: “We were talking about ­doing a podcast and decided we needed some kind of hook. Transport and vehicles is a passion for both of us, but it’s really just a route to yarns.”

As we speak over Zoom, today’s yarns ­include the time that drinks with Jim’s comedy partner Bob Mortimer and the Oasis Gallagher brothers ended up in an arm wrestle to settle class differences.

“We were in a hotel and Liam and Noel were sat with us,” says Jim.

“Liam got on his high horse and declared Bob and I were ­upper middle class and didn’t have to strive and work like Oasis did, being from a council estate.

"He said, ‘We’ll prove who’s right by having an arm wrestle.’ Because I presume if I won then I would be right? I don’t know what his reasoning was, but it seemed to ­satisfy him. And I won.”

Jools adds: “Jim does have superhuman strength – he’s too modest to mention it.”

Jim also tells how he and 15 pals once squashed into a car to head to a party.

He says: “Me and my friends bought an Austin Cambridge for £50 and decided to see if we could drive to Portsmouth in it with 15 people on board – that was the most agonising trip I’ve ever had in a car.

• 

  Gemma Collins to release 20-minute sex tape for £1million if she 'goes skint'

“We went to an awful fancy dress party dressed as East End gangsters – I think we stayed about two minutes at this party. Then most people went back on the train.”

Jools, 63, has his own fair share of tales very loosely related to transport – such as the time he ended up buying ice cream from a ­one-armed man on the Docklands Light Railway, who had a novel way of dealing with the cones.

He explains: “I went to go on the DLR when it was first opened and my children were small, but it was shut.

“There was an ice cream man with only one arm. So as the DLR was shut, I said, ‘We’ll all have ice creams.’ He got the cones and would stick them ­under his armpit.

“He did the ice cream with his chin then put the cone under his stump, poor bloke, and then he’d get the Flake in with his other hand and pass it to the children. I remember he had a glove, but not an underarm glove.

“When it got my turn, I’d said I’d leave it. I felt it was not my place to tell him how to run things.”

Fans of Vic and Bob will be delighted to hear their much-delayed debut film, The Glove, is set to start filming this summer.

The former hosts of Shooting Stars penned the screenplay more than a decade ago, but it looks to have finally got off the ground.

• 

  Captain Sir Tom Moore's final funeral instructions as he 'didn't want big fuss'

Jim says: “I got a message last week saying we could film it in August and September.

“It’s like the Holy Grail, but set now, and the great prize is Michael Jackson’s training glove – a bit of celebrity memorabilia that someone really wants and pays for us to go and find it.

“But it’s actually a garden glove he uses to train, which has his magical powers in it.

“We were supposed to be filming it last year and Nicolas Cage was going to be the baddie in it, but who knows what will ­happen? Paul Rudd has asked if he can be in it – he’d be good.”

Jools has lost much of his work since Covid struck, cutting back on episodes of his BBC music show Later… With Jools Holland, while his big band are stuck at home.

He says: “It will come back eventually, but it’s pretty hard out there. We’ve been doing another series of Later… where it’s just me and one guest. My big band are all marooned and touring in Europe is hard now because of the visa issue.

“The live touring thing is bleak, but ­every- one is longing to come back and will be having a great dance of joy when it happens and we can do gigs again.”

● Jools and Jim’s Joyride is available now from all usual podcast providers.

Source: Read Full Article