Here is how I apply for employment. No doubt I am probably going a bit mad:
To whom it may concern,
My name is Jim Smyth. I am writing to apply for the conjoined roles in Mr Clegg's office. I am currently an exam invigilator at my old school in Birmingham and outside of the exam period I am an irregular exhibition labourer and painter. These fair weather forms of employment are jobs I fell into after leaving the University of Plymouth and returning to Birmingham. Since then I have been trawling the employment prospects looking for a way to keep myself busy. After years of this I have more or less given up finding a job that is not mind-numbingly boring, poorly paid or advertised so opaquely that you can barely know what the role is.
This is all a roundabout way of saying I cannot think of any good reasons why you should employ me. Like many other jobs in the country you have your pick thousands of applicants. These applicants will be better educated than me; they will be more qualified than me; they will have more experience; they will already live in London; they will probably be party members and may have a storied background of passionately politically involved people. These may seem like cons rather than positive reasons for you to employ me but I figure there is more value in knowing your weaknesses than believing in yourself and overreaching due to hubris.
I do not have any false hopes concerning the interesting nature of this job at the very least I expect it to be hellishly boring. There is a slim chance though that working for the Deputy Prime Minister; a head of a party or just interacting with an MP's constituents could on occasion transcend the boring routine of life. It could be valid, it could be something worth putting my hard working nature into. It could be an interesting way to use my withered brain.
I have some transferable skills though. I am patient like you have to be when you spend your time literally watching paint dry and attempting to get teens to do their exams. I can deal with the minutiae of admin work and I interact well with many different people from workers in a foreign exhibition hall to young people trying to figure out an exam question.
Most importantly I am realistic about my chances. A talent which surely should come in useful for the minor members of a coalition. I know I am probably not politically motivated enough for the role but I am somewhat passionate about politics. Well I can hold one sided rants with the newspaper or the television most of which I often lose. Whatever happens, however poorly you react to this application attempt, thank you very much for reading my diatribe. I hope you find someone suitable.
Yours,
Jim Smyth
Wednesday, 15 May 2013
Saturday, 11 February 2012
Can an Atheist Take the Lord's Name in Vain?: Book II
God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens
God is Not Great is Christopher Hitchen's excoriating critique of religion and the religious mindset in it's more fundamentalist forms. He splits his topic into sections on various religions. Few religions escape his discourse he ranges from the rise of Mormonism in America, the Abrahamic faiths and then to their counterparts in the far-East. He analyses and compares various religious leaders to historical dictators and the political movements religion has aped or worked with. He also analyses the more ludicrous aspects of commonality between religions. From the cuisine based religious observance of kosher or halal food. For example the hatred of the pig to the tendency to loan certain elements of religion from those that came before, that is the date of christmas.
Well rationaled and surprisingly calm and even-tempered; the depths of Hitchen's forethought and clinical thinking are interesting and engaging. What is very surprising is his attempts at balance. Although definitely biased it is a concise appropriate bias that still finds time to praise some religious leaders and thinkers for their actions. Be it helping in the fight against tyranny in some corners of the globe (sic) or patronising the arts and the sciences throughout history. This is not rabid ranting of the mouth frothing kind.
The question I should ask myself though, is did I enjoy or find this interesting due to my own personal beliefs? The reality is probably. I did find this comforting during some personal grief over the death of a god-fearing relative. In this case the tendency of the words and rituals of Catholicism to veer from comical to dictatorial left me hollow. By this I mean the commanding, threatening, begging, servitudinal, you are born sinful, aspect of religion and the hilarious dogmatic clinging of to multiple translated, conflicting scratchings of barely literate people who claim some magical mystical source, in the hope that they will entrench their words in the minds of the people as if they are some hallowed constitution.
Would a religious person get much benefit from this book? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on the strength or type of your faith. I have always felt that the more group think nature of your spirituality the stronger the dogmatic or fundamentalist nature of your reaction. If your faith is personal and well thought out, the fundamental contradictions of religion should be of no insulting nature to you. If you are rational about your religion you should already have balanced or be in the eternal act of balancing your dilemmas. From the daftness of Catholicism holding it as a distinction from Protestantism that the wafer and wine in the Communion are literally rather than figuratively transformed into the body of Christ. To the demented nature of the infighting between the major proportion of the world that makes up the Abrahamic faiths squabbling over piss poor lands, shared origins and fairytales passed down through the ages. Replace squabbling desert gods with America and superheroes and you almost have the alternate timelines and universes of comics. Now if only someone would publish a funnies strip about a desert carpenter who was a good chef that would be awesome.
God is Not Great is Christopher Hitchen's excoriating critique of religion and the religious mindset in it's more fundamentalist forms. He splits his topic into sections on various religions. Few religions escape his discourse he ranges from the rise of Mormonism in America, the Abrahamic faiths and then to their counterparts in the far-East. He analyses and compares various religious leaders to historical dictators and the political movements religion has aped or worked with. He also analyses the more ludicrous aspects of commonality between religions. From the cuisine based religious observance of kosher or halal food. For example the hatred of the pig to the tendency to loan certain elements of religion from those that came before, that is the date of christmas.
Well rationaled and surprisingly calm and even-tempered; the depths of Hitchen's forethought and clinical thinking are interesting and engaging. What is very surprising is his attempts at balance. Although definitely biased it is a concise appropriate bias that still finds time to praise some religious leaders and thinkers for their actions. Be it helping in the fight against tyranny in some corners of the globe (sic) or patronising the arts and the sciences throughout history. This is not rabid ranting of the mouth frothing kind.
The question I should ask myself though, is did I enjoy or find this interesting due to my own personal beliefs? The reality is probably. I did find this comforting during some personal grief over the death of a god-fearing relative. In this case the tendency of the words and rituals of Catholicism to veer from comical to dictatorial left me hollow. By this I mean the commanding, threatening, begging, servitudinal, you are born sinful, aspect of religion and the hilarious dogmatic clinging of to multiple translated, conflicting scratchings of barely literate people who claim some magical mystical source, in the hope that they will entrench their words in the minds of the people as if they are some hallowed constitution.
Would a religious person get much benefit from this book? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on the strength or type of your faith. I have always felt that the more group think nature of your spirituality the stronger the dogmatic or fundamentalist nature of your reaction. If your faith is personal and well thought out, the fundamental contradictions of religion should be of no insulting nature to you. If you are rational about your religion you should already have balanced or be in the eternal act of balancing your dilemmas. From the daftness of Catholicism holding it as a distinction from Protestantism that the wafer and wine in the Communion are literally rather than figuratively transformed into the body of Christ. To the demented nature of the infighting between the major proportion of the world that makes up the Abrahamic faiths squabbling over piss poor lands, shared origins and fairytales passed down through the ages. Replace squabbling desert gods with America and superheroes and you almost have the alternate timelines and universes of comics. Now if only someone would publish a funnies strip about a desert carpenter who was a good chef that would be awesome.
What a Catch: Book I
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Catch 22 is a satirical World War II novel set on the island of Pianosa. It follows American soldier John Yossarian and his colleagues through the perils and bureaucratic bullshit of the war machine. Told through the use of non-linear vignettes; Heller switches between descriptions of the characters and tales of the events. Using this to illuminate various recurring mantras and punchlines to jokes or anecdotes that are heard much earlier. So often the earlier question of what does that refer to becomes a question of will be used for a death, a joke or both.
At early points in the novel Heller repeatedly references the "dead man in the tent;" one of Yossarian's absent tent mates. At first it appears that this is Yossarian pulling the leg of his superior officers especially when you realise there is no man. This is mostly played for comic effect or at least as a chapter and argument closing retort to his supervisors when he is annoyed at them. Gradually the dead man is revealed to be a pilot that arrived for duty died on a mission without being officially assigned to anywhere or place in particular. Heller expertly weaves this thread through the novel as an exasperated punchline, full-stop or pronouncement. "But what are you going to do about the dead man in my tent?" Only for the death to come at the end of a tense, failed mission. "And that is how the man in my tent died." A satisfying and quite brutal reveal or turnaround.
This penchant for phrases, words and non-sequiturs is to repeat non-chronologically is reminiscent (depending on who published first) of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House 5. Another excellent World War II novel utilising non-linear plot that uses repetition and common phrasing to reinforce the crushing nature of events and character's resignation to their lot. "And so it goes." But Heller uses a much larger cast of characters and achieves complex layers and levels to this as compared to the more emotionally direct, immediate and impactful work of Vonnegut. Be it Major Major, a character promoted because of his name, purposely setting up his visiting hours and regulations so that no-one can visit him. This leads to characters continually wondering where he has been for the latter half of the novel. Or Aarfy, Yossarian's useless navigator who is so prim and proper he stands upright while the plane is being bombarded by Flak. Whose adherence to morals and upholding his views on treating women correctly leads him to rape and murder a prostitute, "old Aarfy doesn't pay for it." Whether this shows that war can make panicked murderers out of even the most straight edge of us or that a dogged dogmatic adherence to society's values is the wrong way to go I am not sure but it is the event that sends our protagonist Yossarian over the edge emotionally.
Overall Heller delivers a deftly worded, beautifully crafted novel. The large cast is distinctly rendered when it needs to be and although bewildering at the beginning this appears to be so that chapters can be spent explaining the character's roles. Heller finds time for excoriating deconstructions of multiple elements of society and the war machine. There are whole chapters devoted to the mess officer Milo, whose whole existence is devoted to the "syndicate," that is the economy. He flys around conducting no combat missions trying to get rid of the whole stock of Egypt's cotton industry. He climbs high enough to have his own fleet of planes which he then uses to sub-contract both sides of skirmishes and bomb his own side. In this way Heller takes apart all the different aspects of the war be it from the uselessness of having religious representation in the squadron to the health industry and the Doctor's fears. Brave and with mind boggling ambition to it's scope I would well recommend Catch-22.
Catch 22 is a satirical World War II novel set on the island of Pianosa. It follows American soldier John Yossarian and his colleagues through the perils and bureaucratic bullshit of the war machine. Told through the use of non-linear vignettes; Heller switches between descriptions of the characters and tales of the events. Using this to illuminate various recurring mantras and punchlines to jokes or anecdotes that are heard much earlier. So often the earlier question of what does that refer to becomes a question of will be used for a death, a joke or both.
At early points in the novel Heller repeatedly references the "dead man in the tent;" one of Yossarian's absent tent mates. At first it appears that this is Yossarian pulling the leg of his superior officers especially when you realise there is no man. This is mostly played for comic effect or at least as a chapter and argument closing retort to his supervisors when he is annoyed at them. Gradually the dead man is revealed to be a pilot that arrived for duty died on a mission without being officially assigned to anywhere or place in particular. Heller expertly weaves this thread through the novel as an exasperated punchline, full-stop or pronouncement. "But what are you going to do about the dead man in my tent?" Only for the death to come at the end of a tense, failed mission. "And that is how the man in my tent died." A satisfying and quite brutal reveal or turnaround.
This penchant for phrases, words and non-sequiturs is to repeat non-chronologically is reminiscent (depending on who published first) of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House 5. Another excellent World War II novel utilising non-linear plot that uses repetition and common phrasing to reinforce the crushing nature of events and character's resignation to their lot. "And so it goes." But Heller uses a much larger cast of characters and achieves complex layers and levels to this as compared to the more emotionally direct, immediate and impactful work of Vonnegut. Be it Major Major, a character promoted because of his name, purposely setting up his visiting hours and regulations so that no-one can visit him. This leads to characters continually wondering where he has been for the latter half of the novel. Or Aarfy, Yossarian's useless navigator who is so prim and proper he stands upright while the plane is being bombarded by Flak. Whose adherence to morals and upholding his views on treating women correctly leads him to rape and murder a prostitute, "old Aarfy doesn't pay for it." Whether this shows that war can make panicked murderers out of even the most straight edge of us or that a dogged dogmatic adherence to society's values is the wrong way to go I am not sure but it is the event that sends our protagonist Yossarian over the edge emotionally.
Overall Heller delivers a deftly worded, beautifully crafted novel. The large cast is distinctly rendered when it needs to be and although bewildering at the beginning this appears to be so that chapters can be spent explaining the character's roles. Heller finds time for excoriating deconstructions of multiple elements of society and the war machine. There are whole chapters devoted to the mess officer Milo, whose whole existence is devoted to the "syndicate," that is the economy. He flys around conducting no combat missions trying to get rid of the whole stock of Egypt's cotton industry. He climbs high enough to have his own fleet of planes which he then uses to sub-contract both sides of skirmishes and bomb his own side. In this way Heller takes apart all the different aspects of the war be it from the uselessness of having religious representation in the squadron to the health industry and the Doctor's fears. Brave and with mind boggling ambition to it's scope I would well recommend Catch-22.
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Cannonball Read IV
Hello and welcome to Cannonball Read IV. This is my yearly attempt to read and review 52 books in memory of Alabama Pink. Of course as irregular readers of my blog will know this will more than likely be a failure and I will more than likely uselessly segue this opening post into talking about myself.
So what will the next year bring? I will more than likely read over 52 books but most of them will be airport fodder. The few books I read of note will take me over half the year and it is only in the last ten percent of the book that I will finally start to enjoy it but then will immensely. My review count will remain low though because as per usual reading is something I do to procrastinate getting a real life and reviewing is something beneficial to myself, so of course I won't do it. I will not sort out my life; I will avoid getting a real life and still be living at my parents with no future. This glacier cut rut will continue to provide me with beer money and little else and I will be halfway through my fourth or fifth year of achieving little to nothing and going nowhere. And of course it goes without saying I will over analyse everything including my ever expanding lack of a love life. And of course I will have wasted far too much time watching crap films and doing bugger all. Before realising that I almost described my love life in terms of a Matthew McConaughey film. Maybe in the next year my pop culture referencing will hit an even lower low.
So to all not paying attention see you in 2013. Hope I don't make it.
So what will the next year bring? I will more than likely read over 52 books but most of them will be airport fodder. The few books I read of note will take me over half the year and it is only in the last ten percent of the book that I will finally start to enjoy it but then will immensely. My review count will remain low though because as per usual reading is something I do to procrastinate getting a real life and reviewing is something beneficial to myself, so of course I won't do it. I will not sort out my life; I will avoid getting a real life and still be living at my parents with no future. This glacier cut rut will continue to provide me with beer money and little else and I will be halfway through my fourth or fifth year of achieving little to nothing and going nowhere. And of course it goes without saying I will over analyse everything including my ever expanding lack of a love life. And of course I will have wasted far too much time watching crap films and doing bugger all. Before realising that I almost described my love life in terms of a Matthew McConaughey film. Maybe in the next year my pop culture referencing will hit an even lower low.
So to all not paying attention see you in 2013. Hope I don't make it.
Friday, 9 December 2011
Blowing in the Wind: Book VI
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a post-appocalyptic novel about a father and a son crossing the wasteland of North America in an attempt to reach the Ocean. Pushing a shopping trolley through the endless grey; they travel starving and ill through the unhappy world of this Pulitzer Prize winning novel. The reason for the appocalypse is never mentioned nor does it need to be.
The novel is first and foremost about the relationship between the never named father and son. The boy regularly tries to split people into good and bad and always asks whether or not they carry the "fire". The boy knows that the world he lives in is broken and horrible; a world that his mother has committed suicide in. He still has hope though, that the ocean holds some release from the world he lives in. At the very least, of a future.
The father on the other hand, knows and suspects that he is dying from infection and starvation. He knows he must go onwards for his child even if it means dying. To stop travelling or moving is to die; to run out of food and get overrun by the outlaws, bandits and cannibals that roam this world. There is one let up in this unrelenting bleakness that gives the audience a respite. This is when they find a nuclear bunker with food and shelter in it. All of a sudden the world seems brighter and the characters health improves. It is established early on to the audience that this is temporary the safety and food will not last more than a few days. Meaning that it is a bittersweet respite that gets more tragic as it goes onward.
One of my favourite techniques that McCarthy uses to construct the desolation of society in our minds is his purposeful use of punctuation and grammar. He makes the decision to keep sentences and imagery as short as possible keeping it very sparse. Lines are short and punctuation is limited. This gives the effect that as humanity has failed so have our social constructs.
This all builds towards a fateful ending but it is the world and paternal relationship that McCarthy creates that make this such a powerful novel. Not an easy read but a great all the same; worthwhile but difficult for it's subject matter rather than it's size or complexity.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a post-appocalyptic novel about a father and a son crossing the wasteland of North America in an attempt to reach the Ocean. Pushing a shopping trolley through the endless grey; they travel starving and ill through the unhappy world of this Pulitzer Prize winning novel. The reason for the appocalypse is never mentioned nor does it need to be.
The novel is first and foremost about the relationship between the never named father and son. The boy regularly tries to split people into good and bad and always asks whether or not they carry the "fire". The boy knows that the world he lives in is broken and horrible; a world that his mother has committed suicide in. He still has hope though, that the ocean holds some release from the world he lives in. At the very least, of a future.
The father on the other hand, knows and suspects that he is dying from infection and starvation. He knows he must go onwards for his child even if it means dying. To stop travelling or moving is to die; to run out of food and get overrun by the outlaws, bandits and cannibals that roam this world. There is one let up in this unrelenting bleakness that gives the audience a respite. This is when they find a nuclear bunker with food and shelter in it. All of a sudden the world seems brighter and the characters health improves. It is established early on to the audience that this is temporary the safety and food will not last more than a few days. Meaning that it is a bittersweet respite that gets more tragic as it goes onward.
One of my favourite techniques that McCarthy uses to construct the desolation of society in our minds is his purposeful use of punctuation and grammar. He makes the decision to keep sentences and imagery as short as possible keeping it very sparse. Lines are short and punctuation is limited. This gives the effect that as humanity has failed so have our social constructs.
This all builds towards a fateful ending but it is the world and paternal relationship that McCarthy creates that make this such a powerful novel. Not an easy read but a great all the same; worthwhile but difficult for it's subject matter rather than it's size or complexity.
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
But If That Mockingbird Don't Sing: Book V
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
I purchased this novel while taking my younger sister to the Electric Cinema in Notting Hill for a BBC TV showing. It was pre-Christmas and this was purely a whim purchase. All I knew about this novel was it concerned a principled Southern lawyer named Atticus Finch (portrayed by Gregory Peck in the film) defending a black man from a rape charge. So many times have I seen Atticus Finch referenced in pop-culture that I have no idea if the stereotype of the principled compassionate Southern lawyer came from this novel. As the other side of the coin is the lawyer space rooster from Futurama then I think it maybe the genesis of this idea.
Happily though the novel was far away and away from being this limited or tightly focused. It was a stunning vignette based look into an old Southern American town and it's economic and social issues. Told through the eyes of Atticus' tom-boy daughter Scout, this is a deeply moving and affecting account of their town and the people in it. It covers everything from the story of the kids, Jem and Scout Finch reading stories to an old racist lady to help her beat her addiction to morphine before she dies. To the night when Atticus guards his client, Tom Robinson, in the county jail as locals come to lynch him. It is only the advent of Atticus' children sneaking out of his house and running up to their father that shame the mob into relenting.
The novel paints a believable and layered depiction of this town with depth and vigour. All through the eyes of a precocious young girl. This is Harper Lee's only novel and it arrives as a fully formed slice of life. I particularly enjoyed the depictions of school life. For example, how some children turned up to school for a day then went to work their parents fields. An example of playing the system that existed in Simon & Burns' Life on the Corner but with the American fields being changed to the corner and the drug trade. The obsession with the minutiae of childhood are rendered immaculately. Even though I have never lived in the deep south of America in the nineteen thirties there is still a sense of connection to the childhood Lee created. It sparked memories of a world of being scared of certain dark footpaths because someone had got in a fight there or where obsessions with nooks and hidey-holes are a daily occurence.
After reading this the novel did the rounds of my family all who had not read it before and all were surprised and moved by the depictions. It was a far less courtroom lead piece than many had suspected and it had a greater range and impact for that. This is not a classic that is too inaccessible or long it i the type of novel that superlatives were made for.
I purchased this novel while taking my younger sister to the Electric Cinema in Notting Hill for a BBC TV showing. It was pre-Christmas and this was purely a whim purchase. All I knew about this novel was it concerned a principled Southern lawyer named Atticus Finch (portrayed by Gregory Peck in the film) defending a black man from a rape charge. So many times have I seen Atticus Finch referenced in pop-culture that I have no idea if the stereotype of the principled compassionate Southern lawyer came from this novel. As the other side of the coin is the lawyer space rooster from Futurama then I think it maybe the genesis of this idea.
Happily though the novel was far away and away from being this limited or tightly focused. It was a stunning vignette based look into an old Southern American town and it's economic and social issues. Told through the eyes of Atticus' tom-boy daughter Scout, this is a deeply moving and affecting account of their town and the people in it. It covers everything from the story of the kids, Jem and Scout Finch reading stories to an old racist lady to help her beat her addiction to morphine before she dies. To the night when Atticus guards his client, Tom Robinson, in the county jail as locals come to lynch him. It is only the advent of Atticus' children sneaking out of his house and running up to their father that shame the mob into relenting.
The novel paints a believable and layered depiction of this town with depth and vigour. All through the eyes of a precocious young girl. This is Harper Lee's only novel and it arrives as a fully formed slice of life. I particularly enjoyed the depictions of school life. For example, how some children turned up to school for a day then went to work their parents fields. An example of playing the system that existed in Simon & Burns' Life on the Corner but with the American fields being changed to the corner and the drug trade. The obsession with the minutiae of childhood are rendered immaculately. Even though I have never lived in the deep south of America in the nineteen thirties there is still a sense of connection to the childhood Lee created. It sparked memories of a world of being scared of certain dark footpaths because someone had got in a fight there or where obsessions with nooks and hidey-holes are a daily occurence.
After reading this the novel did the rounds of my family all who had not read it before and all were surprised and moved by the depictions. It was a far less courtroom lead piece than many had suspected and it had a greater range and impact for that. This is not a classic that is too inaccessible or long it i the type of novel that superlatives were made for.
This Morning Without Richard Or Judy: Book IV
Stewart Lee: How I Escaped My Certain Fate, The Life and Deaths of a Stand-Up Comedian.
There is a perverse voyeurism about experiencing places you know from real life on TV or in literature. It is for this reason that Stewart Lee's memoir slash analysis of his stand-up career had a certain place in my heart. Mr Lee bookends this exploration of the highs and lows of his career with anecdotes of a distinctly Brummie nature. He begins with his inspiration watching Ted Chippington support The Fall and ends on a confirmation of a TV series in an infamously dingy Birmingham greasy spoon in the same area. This greasy spoon is used pretty commonly by stand-up comedians visiting Birmingham as a method of establishing a connection with the audience. Knowing this I am not sure whether Mr Lee's use of this greasy spoon is a narrative falsehood; a nostalgic reference or a commentary on the ubiquity of this crowd technique. But whether or not it is poetic licence is irrelevant because it is the stories he tells you of his travails in stand-up that endear you to the man and make me come to the conclusion that is a nostalgic tool to end his account.
Mr Lee structures the book around pieces detailing certain important points in his career and then annotated texts of his three most successful stand-up shows with footnotes elaborating on points, thoughts and ideas. In fact the book is a plethora of lengthy footnotes. This is not a book for those with difficulty following asides. tangents and multi-page footnotes. These notes range from the provenance of a joke; to in depth discussions on comedians; memories of childhood; the touring of the show; to notes about pros and cons to this specific point in the set. There is a definite overflow of information here but in a good way. For example one of the appendices is even a review of Johnny Vegas' stage shows and the monumental breakdowns he nightly has on stage. This left me with a mental image of Johnny as some type of Hamlet of the comedy world arguing with the ghost of his father, the advertising monkey, on stage.
The book would not be worth these insightful asides if it wasn't funny. To use an over used cliche, it is riotously funny. (Funny like a riot?) If you have no idea of Mr Lee's material it includes deft plotting with repetition and then deliberate attempts to lose the crowd and disengage just to then try to regain their trust. Clinical and intellectual to a rational point his voice translates very well to the written word. Although as remarked upon by Tesco, comedy, big wig Andrew Pearsall his stand-up scripts are surprisingly short on the page. They are tightly written and plotted though with points to jump off from depending upon the crowd. For example Mr Lee points out that if a crowd was with him at a certain point he would take joy in dividing and conquering them into smaller groups. Complimenting one group on their speed in understanding the joke and heckling the others along to the point. It is an art-form of heady belligerance and stage craft all in an attempt to avoid the spoon feeding which he holds some comedians in contempt for.
Lee uses his career to put together a retrospective on the British comedy scene over the past twenty years. From alternative comedy as a response to the Thatcher years; to the twisting of morality in an ever fractured society. Mr Lee concerns himself with the mainstreaming of the comedy scene in the mid to early nineties; his own dissatisfaction with that scene and his subsequent success as a blasphemer of some disrepute with the stage show, Jerry Springer: The Opera.
Informative engaging and intelligent. This book is a must read for anyone with a passing interest in comedy. Whether a fan or someone who finds his material difficult and alienating his dissections of his act are so interesting I would recommend this to many.
There is a perverse voyeurism about experiencing places you know from real life on TV or in literature. It is for this reason that Stewart Lee's memoir slash analysis of his stand-up career had a certain place in my heart. Mr Lee bookends this exploration of the highs and lows of his career with anecdotes of a distinctly Brummie nature. He begins with his inspiration watching Ted Chippington support The Fall and ends on a confirmation of a TV series in an infamously dingy Birmingham greasy spoon in the same area. This greasy spoon is used pretty commonly by stand-up comedians visiting Birmingham as a method of establishing a connection with the audience. Knowing this I am not sure whether Mr Lee's use of this greasy spoon is a narrative falsehood; a nostalgic reference or a commentary on the ubiquity of this crowd technique. But whether or not it is poetic licence is irrelevant because it is the stories he tells you of his travails in stand-up that endear you to the man and make me come to the conclusion that is a nostalgic tool to end his account.
Mr Lee structures the book around pieces detailing certain important points in his career and then annotated texts of his three most successful stand-up shows with footnotes elaborating on points, thoughts and ideas. In fact the book is a plethora of lengthy footnotes. This is not a book for those with difficulty following asides. tangents and multi-page footnotes. These notes range from the provenance of a joke; to in depth discussions on comedians; memories of childhood; the touring of the show; to notes about pros and cons to this specific point in the set. There is a definite overflow of information here but in a good way. For example one of the appendices is even a review of Johnny Vegas' stage shows and the monumental breakdowns he nightly has on stage. This left me with a mental image of Johnny as some type of Hamlet of the comedy world arguing with the ghost of his father, the advertising monkey, on stage.
The book would not be worth these insightful asides if it wasn't funny. To use an over used cliche, it is riotously funny. (Funny like a riot?) If you have no idea of Mr Lee's material it includes deft plotting with repetition and then deliberate attempts to lose the crowd and disengage just to then try to regain their trust. Clinical and intellectual to a rational point his voice translates very well to the written word. Although as remarked upon by Tesco, comedy, big wig Andrew Pearsall his stand-up scripts are surprisingly short on the page. They are tightly written and plotted though with points to jump off from depending upon the crowd. For example Mr Lee points out that if a crowd was with him at a certain point he would take joy in dividing and conquering them into smaller groups. Complimenting one group on their speed in understanding the joke and heckling the others along to the point. It is an art-form of heady belligerance and stage craft all in an attempt to avoid the spoon feeding which he holds some comedians in contempt for.
Lee uses his career to put together a retrospective on the British comedy scene over the past twenty years. From alternative comedy as a response to the Thatcher years; to the twisting of morality in an ever fractured society. Mr Lee concerns himself with the mainstreaming of the comedy scene in the mid to early nineties; his own dissatisfaction with that scene and his subsequent success as a blasphemer of some disrepute with the stage show, Jerry Springer: The Opera.
Informative engaging and intelligent. This book is a must read for anyone with a passing interest in comedy. Whether a fan or someone who finds his material difficult and alienating his dissections of his act are so interesting I would recommend this to many.
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