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The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs by Irvine Welsh


Freewheeling Andy

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You'd be excited, wouldn't you? A book by Irvine Welsh, of Trainspotting fame. About sex and food? I was excited.

 

Unfortunately, the anticipation was about as good as it got. The book had nothing like enough food, or enough sex, or even enough of the traditional Irvine Welsh malice. It was like a watered down parody of an Irvine Weslh book.

 

Which is not a good thing.

 

The premise is silly - Danny Skinner, drunken wide-boy health-inspector, hates new, shiny bright young thing, who is far too clean living and dull, Brian Kibby. He hates him so much that he casts a spell where all of Skinner's hangovers are visited on Kibby, and all of Kibby's good living is visited on Skinner. And so on.

 

With the usual mix of swearing and football violence and drinking and drug taking that you get in Welsh's books, you can imagine what happens to dull Brian.

 

Meanwhile, Danny is on a quest to find his dad, the only thing he knows is that "dad" is a chef.

 

And, you know, that's about it. The story moves along implausibly. The characters and flat and trite and cliched (Oh, come on Irvine, you don't need to tell us that the boring boy is excited by going to Star Trek conventions and listening to Coldplay and U2 - how bloody original are you?).

 

The one redeeming feature is that it moves along fast enough that you can finish this diluted Marabou Stork Nightmares fairly quickly.

 

Don't read it. Use your time wisely elsewhere.

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