Untold Chapters with Des Lynam

hello and welcome to another episode of Untold chapters today I have the absolute pleasure of introducing for you our guest today Dez Liam known for his smooth and witty style of commentary ZZ Liam is a famous Irish born television and radio presenter who has hosted many major sporting events in his career he was appointed officer of the order of the British Empire in the 2008 New Year honors in 1977 Dez transitioned over to television where he hosted Sports wide grand stand Sports night and match of the day as well as major events like Wimbledon and the football World Cup in 1999 he switched to ITV covering the champions league and World Cup and also presented non-sporting shows such as holiday how do we do that and Countdown the illustrator for both of Dez's beloved books is briany Hill the wife of des's great friend and colleague the late Jimmy Hill thank you for agreeing to come on to Untold chapters and thank you for making the time for it as well would you like to introduce yourself for our viewers I've written a book of books called now who's talking about animals talking to each other in English as it were what inspired you to write the now who's talking book series rather than a book in relation to sports given your sports background well I've done Sports books before including my autobiography and they're somewhat limited but what inspired me to do this was simply looking out the window and seeing how animals behave with each other and I put voices to them and the idea was to to amuse people and I think that's had that effect who is your ideal Target reading for your books well as the Publishers themselves wrote to me when they came up when I came up with the original idea was that the appeal of these books is to everybody it's about humor it's not about the animals as such it's not about it's not for children it's for people with a sense of humor who get a smile from these stories hopefully what inspired the uh format of the book with the conversations uh for the different animals so was it just because uh when you were you know looking out the window and S of the mag pies and sort of decided on that certain format yes and then I I rang up my good friend briany Hill who's the Widow of Jimmy Hill my former colleague at the BBC and I was telling her about this the idea I had for this she said well can I do some drawings I said certainly I knew she's a great artist she's a member of the Royal Academy and um she did the drawings for me which added to the book and the Publishers were delighted with the with the end product as was I I love uh the watercolor style of the uh the drawings as well all throughout the book so what message would you like for the reader to take away from the book what will readers take away from the book they have had some fun with it they can dip in and out of it any time on any page really they don't have to read the books from beginning to end they can pick out their favorite stories or they can read all of them and some will amuse them and some will laugh heartily at them I hope that's the hope they're just Amusement books really so do you have so for anyone you know wanting to write their own book or sort of trying to um decide uh what book they're wanting to write do you have any advice any tips and tricks for them no not really I think that they they always say if you're writing a book write about something you know about well I didn't know anything about animals very much not not a specialist knowledge but I made sure I didn't make M or tried not to make mistakes when I wrote about them for example when I wrote about the baby alligators um I I didn't know until I read it up that when alligators are born of crocodiles they often live within in the mouth mouth area of the parent while they're very tiny before they let out to swim in the river or whatever it is I also didn't know that hippopotamuses don't swim they walk on the river bed they can swim if they're pushed to it but they don't like to swim they just Wade through the water now I've gone on to the zoo animals there haven't they but um I researched these stories quite well S I didn't make any boo boos so have you so the more that you've written for certain animals have you started like uh absorbing like the different facts so now uh you'll be great at like any trivia that you come across or anything of the sort well I might be but some of it I retain some of it I don't retain but I just wanted to when I was dealing with these animals that I didn't write about them and get get what do wrong for example bats I read about bats and um bats of course fly but um I was amused to write about a bird questioning what they were were they really weren't they Birds they must be Birds if they fly but um of course bats fly and they really emerge to life during the nighttime sleep all day in contrast to the B real birds feathered variety who are active during the day and sleep at night so I wrote a little story about two bats do you want to hear it yeah absolutely two bats in conversation you'll never guess what happened yesterday what happened well I was just leaving the garden shed about 10:00 nice and dark lots of insects when this bird approached me what did she want she wanted to know what kind of bird I was was cheek she said only Birds could fly so I set her straight and showed her a bit of the old duger buds you know looping the loop and all that was she impressed hard to say she was a bit put out about me hanging upside down while we were talking she thought I was preoccupied are you going to see her again not in the daytime obviously that's when I'm asleep and she and her Pals do all that flipping singing that's the story about the bats oh that's honestly that's really really cute as well as an added bonus de has done a reading from his first book this is two cats what's got your back up today it's this flipping Bell it always looks nice it may do but if you had it tinkling in your ear every time you moved you'd be unhappy well you've had to wear it because you were chasing the birds now they can hear when you're on the prow well I'm not going to lie I get these terrible migraines how come you don't have to wear one I don't chase Birds I chase mice I'm a hero when I catch one of them take my advice old son go on the mice for a while perhaps deliver one to her indoors and she'll think you're reformed oh it's no use talking to him he's off again I think the birds are just having a laugh it's always interesting to to see you know like the conversations for each animal and especially like when you're actually telling the story as well you sort of get submersed in it as well so honestly absolutely fantastic thank you for taking the time to you know come on an episode of Untold chapters and um I wish you the best of luck when it comes to writing further stories with um you know more animals to you know see what they get up to and what types of conversations they have thank you thank you for listening to today's episode of Untold chapters if you would like to see more please don't forget to like comment and subscribe to purchase your version of either of des's books you will find the links in the description