Alex James: The Great Escape

Published: 28 February 2007

On Sunday, I had risen at six and done three rounds with Bonnie Greer in London, reviewing the newspapers on Radio 4, before breakfast. I liked her immensely, but managed to wind her up by suggesting that outer space is a boy thing. She was quite worried about Britney. We all are. Then I went to Manchester to record The Tube and interviewed a space weather expert and a folk singer whose songs seemed to speak of things like moist mushrooms and foxes' milk. It has never occurred to me to write songs about such things.

When I got back to the farm at midnight, Funda, the new German au pair, was standing over Artie, the fatter of our twins, looking worried. He had a thermometer sticking out of his bottom. I pointed to the thermometer, which said 104.7, and said, "That should do the trick!" She nodded and said, "I learn zis in ze hospital." Claire had gone to Portugal so I dumped her by text message, for desertion, while I waited for NHS Direct to call back.

NHS Direct is excellent. The doctor who phoned back was called Dr Madassy. He was helpful, kind and wonderful, but the most cheering, comforting thing was his name. One of my co-presenters on The Tube has a habit of referring to anything peculiar as "mad-arsed", and Dr Madassy was the latest in a string of slightly comically-named doctors. My childhood GP was Dr Uren, a source of mirth even to my mother, who is not usually given over to silliness. The doctor at college was Dr Dick, which was too much for everybody. I think that it is the utter seriousness of the doctor's surgery which brings out the child in me.

Artie's temperature was still above 103 at 4am so I took him to the hospital as directed. I've lost count of how many times I've zoomed up the A361 with an ailing baby, in the middle of the night, in a cold sweat. The worst thing is I always know this won't be the last time. This wasn't one of the worst mad dashes. At least he was breathing all right.

I noticed the doctor didn't put a thermometer up his bottom. That must be a German thing. He had a device that shone in the ear and took an instantaneous reading. Artie was fine by that point. He didn't have a temperature at all and was happily trying to eat his fingers as usual. I felt a huge weight fall from me and started singing a song about moisty maggoty mushrooms. Sick babies are the hardest of fortune's slings and arrows to deal with, especially in the middle of the night. I thought.

The only thing that had stopped Artie crying was a repeat of the Newcastle United game. It had finished by the time we got home again. I looked for some more football for him. The Oscars coverage was on several networks. I watched about 30 seconds of some awful thespian thanking everybody. He hadn't even won anything. He was just walking in and being gut-wrenchingly sincere. I realised it was making me feel worse than watching my baby deteriorate. That's show business.