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Flip's 2016 Books Read


Flip Martian

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My memory is so bad I've taken to reviewing the books I read on LibraryThing to remind me what I thought about them! So seemed a good idea to go back through those and review and update the ones I've gone through...

 

I actually had a bad one to start...

 

On the face of it, a decent, easy to read, account of goings on in Northern Ireland in the early 70s by someone purporting to be from the SAS. The tale is that his team drove around in an unmarked car kidnapping and eliminating IRA personnel coming up tover the border from Ireland. I don't remember it as being too graphic but the take seemed plausible.

But apparently its totally fabricated (google the book title and author and see for yourself!). Which, after investing the time and effort in reading a book was more than a bit galling! I don't really do fiction...  As a true story, I'd have given it a 5 as its an easy read and does keep your attention. As its a fabricated pack of lies (apparently), I'd give it a 1 instead!. So off to the charity shop bag it went.

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The next one was rather better.
 

Interesting read about someone I grew up seeing on TV in the Carry On films and other things, but never really knowing much about the man behind the TV persona. And he kept his private life fairly private.

A well researched book, particularly about the period Sid was vague/shady about - his early life in South Africa. Written in an easy style, I came away knowing the subject a lot better - and probably liking him a bit less in some ways. A man of many faults but many of those talking to the author profess to still think well of him despite him fleecing them of money to feed his gambling and the inevitable shenanigans with other women throughout his several marriages...I never quite got WHY they still thought of him so fondly, but there must have been a lot of good in him too; alongside the apparent lack of ego, the fact that he was very professional and took the time to make others feel welcome.

Probably a bit brief in some areas - it was only revealed in passing while talking about his infatuation with Barbara Windsor that his own marriage had been loveless for years (no real sense of whether that was true or not - it was just what Sid claimed at the time). In fact there wasn't a lot about his 3rd marriage other than his wife tried to keep control of the money to stop him gambling it all away.

Its a good book, I enjoyed reading it. You want a biography to tell you things you didn't know - and this does that. But its not so in depth that you really get to understand Sid - its noted that he kept people from his past at arm's length or just ignored them altogether. Bearing in mind he probably knew some shady people in his youth, you can understand that. But no real explanation is given, leaving you to form the impression he was just heartless, cold and selfish - but that seems at odds with what most that are interviewed actually say about him.

More tomorrow, its late :)

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I do have quite a few footballer autobiographies but you have to choose them carefully - so many are bland and say very little. This is a decent enough read - I found it very cheap in a used bookshop (surprise surprise!) and so thought it would be worth getting (despite me not being a fan of any of his teams) as he had a reputation as being a bit "left field" and not being your average brainless footballer. And he's certainly not the latter.

Some of his stories are a good reveal on the neanderthals that used to populate football clubs in the 80s/early 90s. But he does like a moan! The overall impression was that yes he had a hard time in his younger days with team mates as he didn't fit in with the neanderthal drinking culture - if anything he was more continental in his lifestyle, in that he already tried to look after himself health and fitness wise - and he also attracted stupid speculation about his sexuality just because he read the broadsheet newspapers and not tabloids, and didn't turn up for training still drunk (like some ex Chelsea team mates in his early days apparently did). BUT...he does also come across as someone who likes to have an opinion on things and more often than not, it seems to involve him grumbling. But its honest, or appears to be, and is a welcome antidote to the usual "what a good time we all had, everyone was mates with everyone" style of footy autobiog. And his time does span the end of the neanderthal English footballer culture and the period when foreign players and managers were coming to England and changing the way footballers trained, ate and looked after themselves rather better.

So on that level I enjoyed it but I don't have much time for moaners so with all the grumbling, its not a book I'd go back to.

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I'm a Liverpool FC fan and KD is probably our greatest ever player, who then went on to manage us too. Over the years I've already read a 3rd party biog on Dalglish and his own autobiography, both published some years ago. So when this came out I didn't see a need to buy it.  But as ever, I saw it going cheap in a used bookshop for a couple of quid, so I thought "why not?".

This book differs a bit in that its more focused on his connection with Liverpool (the city and the club) and was written quite a few years after his first memoir. So perhaps its written with an older, wiser eye. Lots of interesting anecdotes - some I knew, not all though.

He comes across as someone who doesn't really "do" emotional stuff; very old fashioned Glaswegian male I imagine. This has possibly been to his detriment given the huge emotional impact of the Hillsborough disaster while he was club manager - he and many of the players attended many funerals and talked with many of the affected families in the aftermath. Both that and the pressures of management took their toll by 1991 when he was so stressed he came out in all over body rashes and ultimately resigned.

The tales he tells reveal a likable devoted family man and someone who ultimately has a lot of self belief. There are gaps where he clearly doesn't want to expand on why he took particular decisions. For example, when appointed as manager in 1985 he is quick to point out, in humility, he didn't know why he was chosen and not his team mate (one of the most decorated players in the game, who later went on to be assistant manager with England) - but then his first decision is to strip that player of the captaincy and install his best mate in the team as captain. Within months, that player was out of the club altogether.

Likewise, he decided to sack the  manager of the reserve team (a former player with many years service to the club), after a year or so but didn't really explain why, other than he was "too quiet and polite". There are stories there but perhaps they're not fully told here.

Making this different to his earlier book is also the input of his wife and children - they all write a brief passage at the end, with their own anecdotes of what Liverpool and his connection to the club has meant for them.

Overall an interesting read from a real legend of the game; someone who seems to have retained his modesty, led an interesting life and seems a decent enough bloke still - although maybe those he's crossed (see above) may well feel differently.
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The story of the capture of Rudolf Hess in 1941 after he parachuted into Britain on a bizarre peace mission he conceived himself, apparently without the ok of Hitler or anyone else. And also a description of the British authorities' efforts to extract information in his first year of capture when held at Mytchett Place (the Camp Z of the title). This is a fascinating glimpse into the real workings of British Intelligence during WW2; a long long way from the glamorous "James Bond" type world protrayed in films. And an excellent portrait of Hess; deluded, paranoid but sane enough to convincingly pretend to have amnesia when it suited.

The book is impeccably researched and contains lots of details of notes taken by key personnel at the time, along with transcripts from conversations between Hess and his interrogators and doctors - its all here. A well written and constructed book; for anyone with even a passing interest in WW2 I would say its a must.

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Another bargain impulse buy from a used bookshop. This was Guiness' first book.

An enjoyable "light" read you can dip in and out of as, while it is his first memoir, its almost constructed as a book of anecdotes. Clearly a well practised raconteur, he tells wonderful stories arising from relationships with friends, acquaintances, other actors (some who sound positively awful self absorbed people, but he seems to find positives in everyone!) and also from his time in the navy during WW2 which he tells in a very self deprecating fashion. Most of the stories are set in the first half of the 20th century (although not all) and consequently there are many revealing glimpses into a time long gone; his writing is so vivid and descriptive (without being dull and bogged down in minutiae) it really is like taking a peek into another world.

 

I liked the book a lot; which was something of a relief as I'd already bought the other 2 books he went on to write, the first of which I read next...

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And here it is...

 

Its a diary, kept for 18 months roughly, from January 1995 to June 1996; an interesting follow up to Blessings In Disguise, which was written in the 80s (this was written about 10 years later). He writes really well; very descriptive and not without wit - he's very funny without trying for laughs, if that makes sense.

Its clear he's only letting readers know what he's happy to reveal about himself, but its entertaining - just whatever he's doing or thinking each day which often leads him back to recounting stories from years gone by. He's over 80 at the time of writing and its clear he's feeling his age a bit. He notes with some sadness the friends that have died during the writing of the diary - indeed, the last week of the book sees another friend of over 50 years pass away unexpectedly.

My impression was that he wasn't entirely happy with his lot in life - his biographies written by others say as much. But that said, its not a morose book - his musings on various things good and bad are entertaining and readable, even when he's having a grumble about something. His description of his holiday in Italy with wife and friends towards the end of the book is so entertainingly detailed and descriptive, I  almost felt I was there observing it happening. Quite a skill.

 

(Haven't read the 3rd book yet, in case you wondered)

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This was a weird one - I was never a fan of his really. But it was £1 in a charity shop and I enjoy tv and film memoirs, so thought I'd try it.
 

Recounting 5 years from the publication of his previous book (his memoirs), this set of diary extracts is a curious book. Its only part diary, really. Its constructed around diary entries but is a mix of diary entries, stories about celebrity friends, acquaintances or long dead comics, expositions on comedy, punctuated by gags. There is no doubt that Monkhouse was an intelligent and confident man - his memory for gags and ability to react off the cuff, is quite something - I can appreciate that even when his humour isn't always my type of humour.

This book is at its best I think when he stops reeling off gags and just talks about things. Although his expositions on comedy grew tiresome to me, his stories/anecdotes about
people - occasionally where names are changed but more often, not - were rather scandalous and fruity; refreshingly entertaining. Or just revealing conversations and interactions he had with people like Dick Emery and Les Dawson. Maybe I just like seeing how people really are behind their celeb facade. One gets the idea from the book that he did work extraordinarily hard - when not on tv he seems to have been doing many many live dates - whether in clubs or for corporate functions. He doesn't seem the type to have sat on his bum between tv shows. That said, when he did go on holiday it was either to Barbados, where he eventually had a house, or often to America and these trips are often described too.

There are many reminiscences of old performances - he's not afraid to recount dying a death in front of various audiences, etc, which serve to illustrate his own honesty and also how hard a job it is, while many of his holiday diary entries seem to be either highlighting the nature of life in Barbados, or a steady list of things he did on his hols in America - mainly shopping and eating in restaurants, in between touristy sight seeing; often with the most detail reserved for the food eaten at various restaurants. He and his wife clearly liked their food. The holiday entries did tend to blur eventually - "arrived in suite at posh hotel with great views...went here, went there, ate here ate there..." was pretty much the order of the day; the exception being a hilarious story of being caught in the rain in Vancouver (far funnier than it sounds).

I didn't really get a sense of too much "up close and personal", despite it being a diary - it really was used as more of a device to trigger stories, sometimes loosely linked to that particular day, sometimes not. While the personal entries were mainly restricted to holidays or parties or events he worked at. That said, cant blame someone who spent so long in the public eye from wanting to keep something back.

As said, this was a follow up to his memoirs published when he was 65, and the book ends shortly after his 70th birthday party with him listing off all the work that has been put in his diary for him to do over the following few months and how he was pleased to still be busy and working. It ends with a rather touching sentence: "is 75 too soon to write another set of memoirs?". Touching because he wasn't to know that he was destined to die 5 years later after suffering prostate cancer.

While the inserting of too many gags was a bit wearing, I do now want to seek out a copy of his memoirs - he can tell a good story and while he was never a favourite of mine when alive, he was an interesting guy who clearly had a long and far more varied career than I realised. And just maybe there's a bit more of himself in that book. But I'm guessing...not too much. Either way, I imagine it will be an entertaining read.

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  • 2 weeks later...
A relatively short but enjoyable book. A journalist in 2006 tries to interview all the surviving members of the 1966 England World Cup team as part of a 40th anniversary celebration for his newspaper. Some choose not to speak to him - and to be honest, he comes across as rather annoying when he continues to try and hassle them a bit into talking (even gate crashing an event they're at). Part of a journalist's make up is never taking no for an answer, I suppose but it does make you sympathise with the players who just didn't want to talk, yet again. In fact, 1 or 2 said they'd only talk if they were paid - I guess if I'd been interviewed to death on a subject for nearly 40 years and wasn't particularly well off, I'd ask for a few quid too. But he had no budget from his newspaper to offer money, so he chose to try and gate crash an event to get it for free anyway. I suppose you can't blame him for trying...but he got turfed out (and as a reader, I was somewhat happy about that).

But the interviews with those who DO talk, including Sir Bobby Charlton who apparently never gives interviews, are interesting even if much of what they say has been seen elsewhere (its a subject that has been done to death over many separate interviews by the players over the years.

Sad that within a year of his interview here, Alan Ball, who came across as very positive and enjoying life despite his wife dying a couple of years earlier, himself died of a heart attack. And that since the book came out, 3 of those interviewed now have Alzheimer's Disease.

Ultimately what shines through is that these are/were all "normal" people who were all self aware enough to know that that's ALL that it was; they're not supermen or Gods, just normal people with a talent who did an extraordinary thing in their youth - they were never highly paid (compared to footballers more recently), pampered or spoilt - they worked hard and got the rewards available at the time. And that it was all a long time ago and age stands still for no man; even the fittest of young men grow old. A reminder to grab life while its there and make the most of it, I think.
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David Tomlinson found wider fame in 3 films for Disney that he's still known for - mary Poppins, The Love Bug, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks - but as this book shows, he actually had a very long career in both theatre and cinema and seemed rarely out of work for long.
 
Its a very gentle autobiography. Rarely a bad word is said about anyone (Jack Lord - he of "Hawaii Five 0" - being the exception, in one brief, sharp sentence made all the more shocking as its so out of character to the rest of the book) and its often frustratingly lacking in detail - almost as though the publisher was determined to keep him to only so many words but still insisted on him covering all his life, rather than any one thing in great detail.

For example - his first marriage ended tragically with his wife having mental health issues and committing suicide by jumping from a building with her 2 sons from a previous marriage. That whole relationship dealt with in a couple of pages and the sons not named at all. Film buffs will be out of luck too - there is very little on the filming of Mary Poppins for example - although there is more about how he first met Disney in the first place. There's more about his family, really, including that one of his sons had Autism - which went undiagnosed in the UK (1 doctor telling him to send his son away to a home and forget about him!). It was actually Disney who arranged for an American specialist to examine the boy and diagnose what was wrong. There are also interesting stories about his father, a London solicitor who basically ran 2 homes and 2 families entirely separately for many many years.

Its a good read. We don't really find out what made Tomlinson tick, although he comes across as a generally decent sort and as someone who had his feet firmly on the ground. He knew how lucky he was to be earning a good living doing what he did; unusually he never had a manager or agent. He was clearly financially astute enough to know his own worth and negotiate his own deals - he was no pushover by any stretch. He (at a relatively young age) found a decent size house in a small village, did it up and lived there for the remainder of his life - indeed, after he died (in 2000) he was buried in the grounds there. Perhaps the book contents ultimately reveal that acting was something he did but home and family were what concerned him most.
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An easy but interesting read. Not the usual story you get from a footballer.
 
The book has a strange layout with new paragraphs almost on every other sentence and double spaced lines but I got used to that quickly enough. Rob Jones was a footballer in the 1980s and 1990s who retire early due to injuries, cutting short a career that saw him as a first team footballer for Liverpool FC and for England. However, its not a tale of "woe is me" and "life can be so unkind". He comes across as a pleasant fella who knows how lucky he was to play as long as he did, and to achieve what he did. While he did struggle for a while to find a direction after retiring at 27 he and his wife have since built a successful children's nursery business - including branching out into the United Arab Emirates - so while there is plenty of detail about his time as a footballer, in many ways its seen as something he once did, and its not ruled his life since.

Its not a book that's ever very controversial or gossipy but a pleasant read nonetheless. A good read for any LFC fan really with plenty of personal memories of players and games. But also a good example of someone making the most of what he had, then when that was taken away, focusing on something else and (with the undoubted help of his wife) making that a success too.
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I now know why I was never moved to be a music journalist, despite being able to write a bit (at least when I was younger) and loving music. You can't just love music - you have to be obsessed with it. Mark Ellen is a writer I remember from Smash Hits in the early 1980s first of all - he turned that music magazine into an amusing read, and as I grew older I moved on to Q, which he had also moved on to. I've always enjoyed his style of writing, although as I fell out of love with music in the 90s (there were few bands I was interested in), so I lost touch with what he went on to do: Select and Mojo (which I bought the odd issue of), and then Word (which totally passed me by, to my now regret!).

Ellen takes us through his music obsession and how it impacted on his life - from his early innocent visiting of festivals to University, to squats and getting a freelance writing gig with the New Musical Express music paper. Along the way we meet some of the people he worked with and some of the musicians he encountered. Its not a book stuffed with "then I met...and they were AWFUL" stories but there are a few. The story of meeting an early musical obsession Roy Harper, along with Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin in the Lake District for a filmed piece for the BBC music programme "Whistle Test" had me in stitches and had me reaching for youtube to find the final edited clip they rescued from the experience (its up there too - all the more interesting when you read the story behind it - neither musician comes out of it well at all). Similarly his final encounter in the book, a week spent on a jet with Rihanna is an eye opener and he uses it to show how things have changed in the music business over his time linked with it.

Very enjoyable book - Ellen's writing style is engaging, witty and very entertaining. Perhaps the only fault I can find is that the encounters were so entertainingly told, I would gladly have taken a few more in there.

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I read this at the start of the year; sadly of course Vaughn died just a few days ago.

 

An easy to read account of his own life and career, including much detail of his upbringing. In fact, he comes across as a rather spoiled, precocious little snit in his far younger days - but then, when raised by a theatrical mother who wanted her only child to be an actor, I guess that was somewhat inevitable! Thankfully he seems to have matured rather, as he grew up.

 

Its a very enjoyable memoir of his career, taking in the early days of TV, 50s Hollywood, the theatre etc. Its easy to forget now just what a huge star he was in the 1960s with The Man From UNCLE and the book is a nice snapshot of what it was like to be a big star back then, with all that goes with it. Not a heavy read by any means but then its a "star's memoir", designed to be picked up and put down! The story does jump back and forth a bit and could have done with a tidier edit, to me. However, what is clear is that Vaughn was a bright, well read guy who led an interesting and full life outside of Hollywood too. Definitely worth picking up.

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This was another book picked up for a quid after thinking "might be worth a read". And it was. An enjoyable celeb biography, written by Crowther, who was one of those people who was seemingly always on tv from the 1960s through to the 1990s before having a rather bad car accident which resulted in his retirement. The book is written with honesty, dealing with his alcoholism (inherited from his father - something else he talks about) and recovery from it later in life, as well as his car accident.

A unique touch was provided by his wife writing the first chapter - dealing with his accident, his coma, brain surgery and the months that followed in hospital as he slowly started to regain speech and movement with lots of therapy. One really gets a sense of how much it affected her and the family. Sadly Crowther also had a heart condition and was never destined for a long life - despite making a good recovery from his injuries, he died just a few short years later.

His childhood and early career are all dealt with in some detail, as is the impact his alcoholic father had on him as a boy and later in life, when he was virtually supporting him, as well as his own family. Crowther comes across as a decent chap, happy to muck in with events in his local village and with endless charity requests. He was clearly a workaholic, even after he got on top of his alcoholism, and its likely that contributed to his being tired enough to nod off at the wheel, which it seems, caused the crash (on the day in question, he was driving home from 2 separate carpet store openings which had followed a charity lunch).

He wrote the book in 1994, the year after his accident, and seems happy to have retired and to take life easier. Sadly he passed away 2 years later from a heart attack at only 63.

The book is now in the "back to the charity shop" bag but it was well worth a read. I only really knew him as an old style showbiz type tv presenter and had never really paid him much attention. However, he came across in the book as a man who appreciated his family very much but was driven to try and reach the top for his Mother, who had encouraged him in that direction but died before he "made it".
 

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A collection of Kuper's articles about footballers over a period of 13 years or so. The older articles (written as far back as 1997) are interesting but out of date, they were written so long ago. Kuper has tried to keep these articles relevant by writing a small update at the end of each article. Except some don't get an update at all, and those there were clearly written very quickly - the updates are frankly pithy and barely 2 sentences, quite often - they don't really update you on what happened to that player in subsequent years, which really is what you're after after reading an interesting interview with, or article about, a player from so long ago. I found myself reaching the end of the chapter (article) and heading over to the internet to learn more - something the update could have done if it was done in a less lazy way - it seemed a poor way to keep old articles in some way "current", to me. A couple of paragraphs on each wouldn't have taken a researcher long.

Simon Kuper is a well known football write with several books to his credit. He's intelligent and can write really well. He speaks several European languages which gives him an advantage for this book - he has interviewed in their own language several European footballers and it's interesting to hear what they have to say, quite often (what they say is more likely to sound more  natural if they were speaking in their own language). But the more recent articles seem the most pertinent as they're closer to the present day; the updates on the old articles (where they've been added) just feel lazy to me and a half arsed attempt to make the articles relevant for a book coming out over several years later.

There are some really well written analyses of personalities in here though - the second one on Arsene Wenger, for example, detailing exactly why he doesn't buy "big" name footballers all makes perfect sense and would shut a lot of people up...but there are 2 articles on him and Maradona, for example - both written years apart but appearing close to each other in the book, of course. So there is a little repetition, although the articles are written about different things.

Ultimately its a book with some fine writing, and much of it is interesting, in discovering what some of the people are like. But many of the articles are old and possibly irrelevant in some cases, with little done in quite a few cases to bring them into a more modern context (ie the time the book was published around 2011). The book felt like it could have been edited better.

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Two books from the Iraq war, sadly one is far better known than the 2nd, despite them being about the same subject matter. First, the more famous one...

 

I'd never read it. I know its popular and everyone's heard of it...but I never read it. But I found a hardback copy for a quid (got to love the Age UK shop in Wolverton!) and thought I'd give it a go.

Ultimately its the story of a failure - a mission that went wrong immediately and their attempted escape from it. It's well told, its very readable, very descriptive and the dialogue throughout is mainly believable. Sadly however, a quick google will expose this for being a rather embellished version of the truth. Maybe the publishing company wanted it "sexed up" or something. The descriptions of his interrogation are very visceral and real sounding - but if any person was beaten and kicked for quite as long, and quite so many times as th author claims in this book, they would surely have been even more worse off than he was (as injured as he was); possibly dead or maimed. Unless he truly is the hardest man in the universe... No doubt much of it happened - it just seems to have been exaggerated a bit - as was when they were compromised, apparently (the way its told they take out Iraqi after Iraqi before escaping).

So despite being very readable, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as its impossible to know now which bits are real and which were made up...

After 1 or 2 other books were written about the same mission, there came another written much later, with the aim of writing an honest account...

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And here it is...The 3rd book written about the Bravo Two Zero mission by one of the ill fated 8 man patrol. It seems a great shame, after reading this, that Andy McNab and Chris Ryan (who wrote the other) have benefited hugely by their previous tales of the mission (which were rather embellished) and that this may well be largely ignored - "who needs yet ANOTHER book about it?" indeed.

And yet this is a book the MoD spent £7m of taxpayers money and 5 years of legal proceedings trying to stop getting published. Why? Because it reveals the awful cockups by the military which led to their predicament - and ultimately to the loss of 3 of the men on the patrol. It is also far less tarted up with vivid descriptions of firefights than the others - much of which didn't actually happen, apparently.

Ultimately, as per the original McNab book (I haven't read Ryan's nor do I intend to as that too has been discredited), this is a tale of failure. A patrol dropped in the wrong place, with no transport (there wasn't enough to go around); with the wrong information on where to go in the event things went wrong; with the wrong radio frequencies given to them, which meant when they needed a particular comms system it wouldn't work; yet more comms equipment which failed, and when they WERE able to get out a short message about their plight to request rescue (or at the very least, working radio equipment), the powers that be decided not to do anything. They were also told by their OC (officer in charge) to head for the Syrian border should there be trouble - contrary to what the military orders actually were (head in the opposite direction to Saudi Arabia).

Coburn's story is told in s straight forward fashion, not pulling punches but not whingeing either. He also puts the record straight on the reputation of 1 of the men who died - virtually branded a coward in Ryan's book (one can only guess to give it a USP with the book buying public at the time). There's also a section on his legal fight to get the book published, and the various underhand ways the MoD tried to stop him.

Of any of the Bravo Two Zero books, this to me would seem to be the one to get. The real eye opener is the inability of those behind the scenes to actually be organised, equipped and able to get on with the task at hand without screwing things up. It's an eye opener for that reason - I'm naturally a pacifist, myself; but if this is indicative of how we conduct wars overseas, then God help the poor sods being sent away to fight for their country...
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Hi Flip :) 

 

I read a lot of sport books for work, but I'm yet to read some of the ones you've mentioned here. I have The Football Men on my pile though. Frustrating about the updates, that would bother me too. I'm currently reading Up There by Michael Walker, which is excellent. It talks about the culture and history of the North East, and how that impacted/s football. As a Liverpool fan you might find it interesting given the huge North East influence eg. Bob Paisley! 

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Hi Flip :)

 

I read a lot of sport books for work, but I'm yet to read some of the ones you've mentioned here. I have The Football Men on my pile though. Frustrating about the updates, that would bother me too. I'm currently reading Up There by Michael Walker, which is excellent. It talks about the culture and history of the North East, and how that impacted/s football. As a Liverpool fan you might find it interesting given the huge North East influence eg. Bob Paisley! 

 

Hi! Thanks for that, I'll add it to my "to find" list :) The Kuper book is interesting - especially the more uptodate later articles (the 2nd one on Wenger, especially). But ultimately its a collection of articles that could have been put together a bit better for the book, I think. Still, once again it was one of my £1 charity shop finds, so not complaining. :) Did make me think I should try Kuper's other books. Cheers for commenting!

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Just finished my latest book. A longer review but then its quite a long book.
 

Tom Bower is a really good writer - I have another of his books, Broken Dreams (about corruption in Football), which i really enjoyed. I saw this book in a charity shop for a pound, saw it was written by Bower and thought "I bet that might be worth reading".

And it is. At the same time, its quite an annoying book. Why? The subject slightly, but more the egotistical, self absorbed and vain people that inhabit his world. Few (well, none, actually) come across with any redeeming features. Cheryl Cole, Paula Abdul, Will.I.Am, Louis Walsh (actually he's not quite as bad as some), Sinitta and his other exes that he keeps as friends by seemingly giving them houses, cars and holidays. All pretty unpleasant people more concerned with their own "status" and place in their gilded world. Even David Walliams in a brief cameo comes across as clingy and insecure and desperate for approval; Sometimes I just had to stop reading as some of the characters were coming across so badly.

Cowell is incredibly vain and insecure; also far too bothered about money than is healthy for anyone. Would I want even a small percentage of his money? Of course. Would I want to be that kind of person to get it, loaded with his vanity and insecurity? No... To be driven so much by the desire to make money and get revenge on business partners he felt had cheated him in some way, is ultimately pretty unhealthy. Success was not enough. Achievements were never enough - its always working on the next thing that interested him.

In his favour, he clearly works extremely hard at what he does and is very focused. He also likes dogs and supports many charities, so clearly he's not completely a "bad person". Does he give a tinker's cuss for anyone else? Not many people no. 1 example: he spent millions changing a multimillion dollar mansion in LA, upsetting his neighbours with months of disruption (while he lived elsewhere) and he's quoted as calling THEM the neighbours from hell because they dared to complain.

He seemingly has very few friends, preferring to confide in a small network of trusted exes and fellow rich people. Clearly he's very good at what he does and for many years found it hard to delegate, so ended up working long long days. But he's also a master manipulator - constantly feeding nonsense stories to the press to improve ratings, while bending his press chums ears to keep out any unsavoury stories about him (bad publicity is only welcome if its on someone else, clearly) - at least until this book was originally published and serialised in the press. He also constantly seemed to engineer tension between the judges on his shows, as it makes "better tv". So while its not all fixed and scripted, its definitely engineered that way - the animosity is real.

Bower has gone to great lengths in his research - Cowell (to his credit) was well aware of the book and met with Bower several times to answer questions and agreed not to have any editorial say over the book at all - so fair play to him for that.

If you like X Factor or any of the *insert countryname*'s Got Talent shows, or have even a slight interest in what Cowell does or what makes him tick, this is a great read about him, his world, and on what goes on to put those shows together. They don't rely on people coming for auditions by the way - they also have teams scouring the country, the internet, youtube etc for likely possible people, who are then persuaded to come along for audition. They don't just rely on getting awful people in front of the camera - they work very hard to find people with the possible star quality as ultimately that gets the ratings up - and makes him far more money.

X Factor is a machine designed to find talent, that he and his companies can then sell to make millions. He doesn't have much to do with the winners - they're ultimately product and when they stop selling he doesn't give them a second thought. They make money too - but ultimately he and his companies make far more from them.

Fascinating book, well written and excruciatingly well researched. An eye opener into how shows like that are created - not just his but The Voice and other shows; all fake and manufactured, with contestants and audiences manipulated for maximum effect. And just how vain (and awful) tv people can be, however you see them come across in interviews. And how people with that much money live. And about Cowell himself. Millions watch those shows regardless. Rather glad I don't; I don't much care for being manipulated.
Edited by Flip Martian
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I must admit, I don't read a lot of biographies - not through choice, but more out of  a sort of case that they sit in a blind-spot for me, so I tend to overlook them in favour of other genres. I have to say though that your reviews of both the Sid James & Robert Vaughn books have really intrigued me, so I shall pick them up. Great reviews!

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