Punters, politics, going on the pull - nothing is out of bounds when you get a bite of Big Mac, as CHRIS TITLEY discovered

RACING'S most flamboyant character is hard at work when we arrive. Amid the madness which is Ebor Day morning at York Racecourse, John McCririck is hunched over his racecard in the County Stand press box, scribbling furiously.

This is a very different McCririck to the one seen on screen. No flailing arms or crackpot delivery. The frame is as big as you expect, the whiskers as bushy, but he is quiet, looks tense and admits he worries "I'll get through the day".

He shows me his notes so far: an A4 sheet covered in tiny handwritten scrawls and crossings out, "nothing to do with machinery and all these Internets and all these computers and whatnot". Suddenly it strikes me how much pressure this man is under.

Not only does he have to undertake any number of live, unscripted television broadcasts during Channel 4's coverage of York Races, he must be bang on top of the form, which horse finished where and when; which prefers a right- hand turn, what each jockey's record is, the owners, the changing odds. And deliver his verdict amid a gaggle of merry punters.

Yet despite the stress he is willing to be interviewed a couple of hours before he's on air.

It was a love of betting rather than racing that started him on the road to stardom, beginning at his public school, Harrow. "I was the school bookmaker, worked in betting shops and racecourses," he says. "I'm a failed bookmaker, failed journalist. There was nothing else left."

The man who is the face of racing, and a key part of the Channel 4 team which is widely accepted to have transformed TV coverage of the sport, is not keen on anything approaching praise.

"Anybody who goes in front of a camera, shouting and screaming, giving their views has got to be an egomaniac, or there's something wrong with them," he says.

"It's not like proper work. I've worked in Boots the Chemists, in hotels, in kitchens and I've been a waiter, that's proper work. This isn't proper work, coming racing, going in the betting ring. I'm unemployable anywhere else."

He loves York Racecourse, and is delighted it was chosen to host Royal Ascot when that course is closed in either 2005 or 2006. "It's absolutely right it's got Ascot in a couple of years time. As I said on television, I hope the Queen's watching, I hope there's a royal procession.

"There's some talk of whether they can get the horses up here. I certainly hope there's a proper royal procession right down the course. I'm sure it will be a huge success. York is a great city."

He is a proud royalist and says "any sport would virtually die" for the royal links which racing enjoys, particularly the patronage of the Queen. "If she goes to the cup final it's once every other year. She reluctantly gives the trophy over and doesn't even know who's playing.

"Sometimes you see the Queen at a race meeting and virtually never know she's there. She just loves horses, and the great thing about it is she knows horses."

What she makes of the man they call Big Mac is anyone's guess. When he is doing his bonkers betting broadcasts, a crowd of revellers gather behind him, getting rowdier as the day goes on.

"I'm virtually the only person on television who is live among the public, hour in, hour out," he points out. "Everyone else, they're in studios, they're in gantries, Des Lynham, Gary Lineker, people like that, they're protected.

"There is this arrogance of the media. The media think they've got the microphone, their views are the only ones that count. On Channel 4 racing we do try to bring in the public, bring in the bookmakers. People will take advantage of it. A few people say hi mum, but is it so terrible?"

He gets a big postbag, including "a lot of abusive letters. But people are entitled to it. They've got some fat person shouting and screaming on television and they want to have a say back."

A couple of years ago a York woman accused him of assault at the Knavesmire course, saying he pushed her. No charges were brought and he said a threat of private prosecution came to nothing.

"It's very, very dangerous.

"Anyone can accuse somebody. You can call it the John Leslie syndrome, and I've no idea what the truth is and nobody knows what the truth is. You just accuse a man and his career is destroyed."

McCririck can't drive and is ferried to all the race meetings by his wife Jenny. He infamously calls her "the Booby": "the Booby's a South American bird, it can't fly, it flaps its wings, and it's stupid. And it squawks a lot. So that really sums up the Booby," he says, embarrassedly acknowledging the laughter from the other men in the press box.

He once arranged a date with a female fan live on TV, and says "the racecourse is a great place to pull". As well as being a top day out for all the family, of course.

McCririck's interests outside sport are history and politics, and he is not slow to get on his soapbox. Although he scoffs at the idea he might be a country gent, he is "100 per cent" in favour of fox hunting. "Put yourself in the position of the fox. If the foxes could vote, they would say right, I'll be chased once or twice a year, probably get away with that.

"Otherwise there's going to be traps, snares, poison."

Shooting them "is vile".

"However skilled a marksman is, they do get away, get gangrene, take days to die. It's disgusting."

He believes the Labour Government is pursuing a fox hunt ban as a token gesture to its Left-wing backbenchers. It is fair to say he is from a different part of the political spectrum.

"I despise socialism. Anybody who's socialist, on the Left. Because they all think they're coming in doing good for their fellow citizens by taking money from everywhere else, and they can distribute it better."

Mrs Thatcher was "tremendous" but did not cut taxes enough. As for the Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, "he's just dreadful, isn't he?

"The trouble is the Conservatives aren't coming up with Conservative policies. They believe in slashing taxes. They believe in slashing back the welfare state, but they daren't say it."

Britain is a "supplicant society," he said, with millions of people on welfare expecting the working population to pay their way.

Despite such strong opinions, he would not want to be an MP. Too much hard work. "People have described me as the pub bore with the microphone. There's a lot of people - in pubs, in your office, in clubs, in factories - who have got their boring opinions, and they shout them out and everyone groans. I'm lucky I've got a microphone to do it.

"I can't believe how fortunate I am."

Updated: 10:47 Thursday, August 21, 2003