The Hell of it All

I once walked into HMV and walked out again clutching Dead Set on DVD and a couple of books called Screen Burn and Dawn of the Dumb. About a week later a show started called You Have Been Watching. As introductions go, it was a pretty immersive one into the world of Charlie Brooker.

Of course, by that point Brooker had been plying his trade for ages and it is, quite frankly, embarrassing, that I'd never heard of him before. Kind of par for the course with me though.

Anyway, cut to now and I am a fully paid up member of the sad case fanboys, the existence of whom no doubt causes Brooker no end of embarrassment. Not a big enough fanboy to actually read the Guardian (never could get into the habit of buying a newspaper) or pick up his latest collection in Hardcover but you know...

Collection number three of Brookers selected columns from the Guardian is much like the first two; really clever, really funny, and really galling in that what he says tallies so perfectly with my own opinions and views but I know that I could never express said views with so much as a fraction of the wit and flair that he does. It's almost enough to make you hate him the way he purports to hate the unwitting victims of his vitriol. But not quite.

The Hell of it All sees him compare The Apprentice to a gangland kangaroo court in which someone gets their knees sliced off with an angle grinder; mock the embarrassingly overblown media furore that erupted over the Ross/Brand/Sachs incident; cast his eye over the Obama/McCain election; have several pops at rolling news stations (he really doesn't like them); and have several rants about such riveting topics as noisy neighbours, old people who don't understand technology and getting old himself. All cracking stuff to be sure.

Oh, and he calls one pseudo celeb a "simpering human perineum". Guess who.

"A genius of spleen" cries out the cover. The words of the Independent, people. The Independent. You know it must be good if those lads are pimping it, so you don't need me to tell you to read it. But I'm going to anyway. Read it. Go on, you know you want to.

The English Rebel

Something a little different this time out, as I delve into the murky waters of the non-fiction shelves. The occasional celeb autobiography is usually as far as I go in that direction but I am resolved to make a little more effort to educate myself a bit and so here we are.

Having always had an interest in history at school, and later fostering that interest, at least after a fashion, with the reading of lots of historical novels from the likes of Bernard Cornwell, it seemed like the natural place to start. Hence this weeks post, and probably most of the non-fiction posts (certainly the next one will be because I already know what the book is), at least for a while, is firmly within that area, So without further ado, I give you The English Rebel by David Horspool


I came to this book after requesting recommendations on a forum I frequent, asking for history books that were accessible enough to not bore a layman but also not so dumbed down as to patronise anyone with half a brain. This was one of the first mentioned (I'll be checking out a few of the others later) and had the attraction of being a fairly broad overview of English history, which I figured would be better to begin with than jumping into one specific aspect or era.

From the resistance movement that sprang up to oppose William the Conqueror in the 11th Century to the strikers and suffragettes of the 20th, the book attempts to cover a lot of ground and for the most part comes up trumps. Getting through almost 10 centuries in less than 400 pages might lead you to suspect that it would read as rushed but not so; the fact that some of the longer reigning monarchs actually faced very little in the way of opposition means that long periods of time are passed over without comment, without compromising the books intent.

Did I, as someone with a very limited knowledge of 'real' history (that is, not from a novel, movie or TV show) gain anything from the reading of this work? Indeed. For one thing, I now know more about the Tudor line than Henry-Henry-a few others with Elizabeth in there at some point, which was the extent of my knowledge before now. I even know the story of Jane Grey, whom I'd never heard of before she cropped up in an episode of Sarah Jane Adventures of all things.*

A few myths and misconceptions gleaned from Robin Hood stories were put to rest, some shady reputations were redeemed slightly (and vice versa) and Mary Poppins is no longer my go to text for knowledge of the suffragettes. All told, I reckon I came away a fair bit more knowledgeable.

How much of it will be retained is down to the reader (I'm terrible) rather than the writing, which is accessible almost throughout. In fact, the only time I found myself flagging slightly was in the closing chapters on the rise of the trade unions and the use of strikes as protest. It's entirely possible (or indeed probable) that this was a problem on my end rather than any lowering of standards on the part of Horspool. As a very young child at the time of the Union/Thatcher clash I don't really remember it as such but I was certainly aware of the aftereffects and the dark mood of society for a while afterward. Perhaps this first hand experience (albeit peripheral) made it seem less legitimate as a history text. After all, doesn't it seem odd to read about events from your own lifetime being considered 'history'? Maybe that's just me.

*In the episode the character is worrying about how history will perceive her and the girl from our time (who was very excited to meet her) tells her that she will be remembered for hundreds of years. Either the guy who wrote that episode has a very poor grasp on how up on history the average schoolkid is or I'm a bit of a dullard. I choose to believe the former.

Nerd Do Well

Slight change of pace this week as I venture into the seldom visited realm of the non-fictional. Yes, for all my talk of giant robots, teenage witches, board game inspired shoot-em-ups and Jesus based conspiracies, I can, when the mood takes me, be all, like, intellectual and junk.

I'm not going to be here mind you, I'm just saying I can be. No, for my first non-fiction book in a long time I've gone with a movie stars autobiography. Because that's how I roll.


Nerd Do Well is, the cover tells us, "A small boy's journey to becoming a big kid" and charts the life of Simon Pegg as he grows up, realises he's funny, and parlays that into a huge television and movie career. Jammy bastard.

Pegg is funny. He is also charming and disarmingly honest about his childhood. (I assume he's honest. If you were making stuff up, you wouldn't make some of these stories up.) He seems at times to be embarrassed by the idea that he is important or interesting enough to warrant an autobiography and some of the funniest moments are self deprecating ones.

I can relate to Pegg, in that I was and still am very much the 'geek/nerd'. His obsessions were my obsessions, his heroes mine, although the way things are looking it's highly unlikely that I'll be making any movies with Steven Spielberg any time soon so the similarities probably end there. The fact that I can relate to Pegg so strongly probably explains why I didn't feel let down by this book. Nerd Do Well is not an industry tell-all. It barely scratches the surface of Peggs career. Instead it is a deeply personal account of the man himself, his influences, his relationship with his family and the friendships that have shaped his adult life. Anyone looking for Star Trek anecdotes or scene by scene production diaries for Hot Fuzz need look elsewhere because this is not the book for them. I'd have been happy with that book, but I'm happier with this one.

And it bears repeating, Pegg is funny. Not least in the chapters, inserted throughout the book at choice moments, that are not autobiographical at all, but rather are a bizarre 3rd person narrative in which Pegg is cast as a (pompous and dim) James Bond/Batman figure, jetting around the world with his trusty robotic sidekick to take on evil geniuses intent on world domination. I don't know whether Simon Pegg has read any Robert Rankin but it was Rankins distinctive brand of 'far-fetched-fiction' that these chapters reminded me of, which is a good thing, because few can pull off this level of ridiculous, fourth wall breaking, nod and wink insanity and not fall flat on their face, and I can't help but hope that if Pegg ever decides to write a novel he dares to embrace this style completely. The world needs more toot.

This book is fried gold. You should buy it, or at least get it out of the library, if for no other reason than to look at Peggs baby photos, in which he looks exactly the same as he does today. Seriously, it's uncanny. Oh, and The Galaxys Greatest Comic, 2000AD, gets a brief but positive mention. That's 10 points right there.