Noel is a fascinating chap. He manages to engage an audience with a sense that you know him very well, yet watch him for long enough and you'll realize he's actually very difficult to understand. He's got some very polarizing character traits, which border genius and insane at times. His assessment of Radio 1 getting the pace of change wrong is interesting, because it echoes the mistakes being made at the time of this interview with Noel's House Party. When the ratings dipped, the response was to change everything overnight and modernize it to resemble Don't Forget Your Toothbrush, which killed it stone dead.
Blimey, this was recorded back in 1999 and he hardly looks any different today. I wish that I could say the same about myself.I am 10 years younger than him, and now that most of my hair has now gone, I look around 10 years older than Noel. Maybethere must be something in having a positive attitude, like Noel has, I have always fought with depression and feelings of negativity.
I wonder if this interview was shot in 98 rather than in 99 because the House Party ended in 99 and it was at the start of 1998 that Noel "Went on Strike" from the BBC for two weeks over the house party.