Melvin Bragg talks with Ammo Dump

Pictures: (Left to right) Crapper, Toilet (below left) Dump

An exclusive interview between Sir Melvin Bragg and Ammo Dump:

In the Biog of Ammo Dump, his list of heroes is endless, and all carry amusing and very very long anecdotes. The list contains all the names you would expect, Don Revie, Tony Yeboah, Franz Kafka, Dave Brock, Peter Gabriel, Ernesto Guevara and the bloke who invented Krispy Kreme doughnuts. But two of the names on the list will surprise people. John Harrington and Thomas Crapper. Harrington invented the flushing toilet and Crapper refined the idea to enable blokes to have a poo whilst reading in comfort. This became known as multi-tasking, something that ladies still claim men can't do.

BBC 4 have asked Ammo to combine 2 of his favorite things and do a series of documentaries, each 1 hour long and in 27 episodes entitled 'Ammo Dumps'.

Dump explains the premise.

'I regal the audience with tales of travel and visiting famous cities. There will be amusing stories of what I have done in each city and then for the remaining 57 minutes of each programme I take an exceedingly long dump in a toilet of my choice in that city. The camera remains focused on the toilet door with a countdown clock to build the excitement'.

I ask him to let us know his favorite and he goes misty eyed and recalls the loo in the hotel lobby in Amsterdam. 'Ah that was in "Cok City"**. Great hotel. I managed to get to 43 minutes before the band started hammering on the door as they were waiting for me. I have to say that the one of the best hotels was in Leeds on my stag do. '42 The Calls'*. Posh is not the word. They actually employ people to wash your bott bott for you instead of using toilet paper'.

I talk to Ruth, Head of Destroya plc, about how Dumps' excessive toilet time encroaches into his personal life. She explains. 'Sometimes I end up going to bed, and he is in the loo, when the alarm goes off 8 hours later, he is still in there reading 12 year old copies of Private Eye'.

My time with Dump is up and I ask one final question. 'Ammo, your surname, did you change it to match your favorite past time?' 'No' he replies, 'I am the latest in a long line of Dumps that stretch as far back as my ancestor Count Louis Van Dump, third high prince consort of Persia, Now shut up and pass me that copy of the 1972 Beano annual, I have some multi-tasking to do'

Thomas Crapper was not available for comment.

*42 The Calls no longer employ bott bott washers for health and safety reasons

**Cok City is not connected with Cock City, a revue bar down the street.