Flip Martian
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Posts posted by Flip Martian
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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. -
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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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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1694?!! Wow. I don't suppose you have a picture of it? I think the idea of actually never reading the book is missing the point too - they were made to be read. While we've not got anything older than around 1850/60, I do find myself automatically looking for old copies of books available today - part of the joy in owning is that its been owned by others, and have a history. That to me is almost the most attractive part.
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Hi, welcome!
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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. -
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. -
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. -
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 -
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. -
Well you're all youngsters to me. I'm 52 (and a half). Always thought being over 40 was ancient. Now I'm just looking forward to retirement.
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That's not too bad. I wish mine was only 168. My problem is I buy books a hell of a lot quicker then I can read them so for every book I read at least 1 or 2 more get added so my TBR never gets any smaller. Still there are worse things in life!
And in the meantime, they sit around on shelves, decorating the place. Win win.
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Hi, welcome! Mostly non fiction for me.
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Pretty much the same for me at the moment. I tend to switch everything off, go to bed and read for an hour (often less) until I get sleepy. If I can concentrate enough to read during the day, again I'm usually lying on the bed; quieter upstairs!
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That Book Collectorz layout looks very attractive. For recording the details though, any database software is only as good as its source data. However, this, in their FAQ would worry me: "100% sure you selected the correct book and you’re still seeing errors in the data? Then please use our Core for Book system to report the error to us and our content managers will fix the problems as soon as possible."
If they could marry their design to the online worldwide sources LibraryThing uses (where that kind of thing just doesn't happen), I'd buy it like a shot. Perhaps the perfect book software doesn't yet exist, so 1 way or another, compromise is necessary.
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So I signed up for an account yesterday afternoon and spent about an hour adding books - overall I like the site but I'm not sure if I'm actually going to use it or not.
My main complaint is that some of the books I tried to add either had no cover image or the wrong one, page counts were off (sometimes by a fair amount of pages) and one or two of them had their synopsis in a language that wasn't English. I know these things may not bother the majority of members but I'm not one of them. I'm a bit OCD about things like this and although I could add a different edition to the one I own/have read I think it will annoy me too much.
I may just stick to an old school method - pen and paper. I just thought it would be nice to have some kind of online record too. I do like the fact that you can click on an authors page and see what other books by that author you still have to read. Same goes for books in a series etc.
I'm assuming that similar sites like LibraryThing would have the same problem?
Autumn - its exactly what stopped me persevering with Goodreads - "that isn't my book, it has a different cover!", amongst the other things you mention. I'm quite OCD about such things. I tried LibraryThing and stuck with it - it has over 700 of my books on it - it has more sources of book info than you can shake a stick at so you will rarely end up with a book with the wrong cover or number of pages! I've even found many of the antiquarian books I have, without having to type them in. They also have sources from other countries, not just UK, so foreign languages are catered for too. Very occasionally my book has no cover - its dead simple to then google for a photo of the cover and import it (takes less than a minute).
At first glance it doesn't look as "nice" as GR but it has more features and functionality that I would use. And to my mind it is far better at finding the right copy of your book to add.
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My step daughter loved it - her friend had recommended it to her. She tried to get me to read it but I lasted about 8 pages. Aimed at a female readership, I thought.
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My wife is away until Monday seeing her son in Glasgow from early tomorrow morning so I'm hoping to take a trip to the Book Farm in Astley once again, assuming I am fit enough. Really won't know until I wake up. Hoping to be as active as possible! But without overdoing it, as usual... Hope all here have an enjoyable one!
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Hand on heart? I love books whether they are hard backs and paperbacks on shelves or electronically on my kindle, so no I don't really think my TBR mountain is too big.
I may not get to read them all in my lifetime, but having them makes my heart and soul feel good, so I will continue to add to them and read them, and just lurve them.
a-men!
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I'm so sorry you're going through so much crap at work just now, Talisman. I feel your pain, I really do. There is nothing worse than being miserable at work. Been there, done that.
My job situation has improved somewhat since my chat with one of the owners on Tuesday. All the owners and my immediate supervisor had a meeting yesterday and I'm not sure what was said but I was called into a 40 minute meeting with my immediate supervisor and was basically told that the changes to the teams/shifts, which was pretty much a done deal two days ago, are now not going to happen. Oh, and the staffing issues I was having to deal with are now (hopefully) not going to be my concern anymore which is even better news. I was also told that I'm good at my job and that everything I do is really appreciated by everyone (him, the owners and my colleagues) which I have to admit was nice to hear. It's not often we get any feedback unless it's negative and it's nice to feel appreciated now and again. Mind you they could just be telling me what they think I want to hear to calm the situation down, rather than face the upheaval of me giving it up and having to find someone to replace me.
I never actually got an answer as to whether giving up the promotion was an option or not but we'll see how things go over the next few months and I'll take it from there.
Friday tomorrow, yay!!
Glad to hear it
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Mine is far too big. Easily well over a hundred, probably over 200. But then I never know what I will want to read, so I see interesting books and buy them. But they're generally old books so look good in the house anyway - part of making my house feel "cosy" is having bookcases all over the place. And bookcases need books.
And I do INTEND to read them all, if I live long enough. -
I don't suppose there are any rules stopping discussion of any book related topic. Many don't feel comfortable discussing their thoughts on erotica even when interested in it, so you may not get much response. Not really 1 for fiction generally myself and erotica doesn't really interest me much so can't really help, sorry
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lol, yep. And Troi's constant "I feel PAIN...so much PAIN...". Ugh... lol
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Supermarkets only tend to have a very limited selection anyway, usually the current big sellers, but very little back catalogue or books which aren't quite in the mass market ie guaranteed to sell, range.
True - but those they sell are many of the new "big selling" books on the market at any 1 time - and if people buy in Tesco (and why shouldn't they - they're so cheap), then that's sales the usual bookshops are no longer getting. Ultimately its just the way the world is going. People will always want a bargain - the big supermarkets cottoned on to that. No sentiment in business!
Antique Book Collecting/Buying
in General Book Discussions
Posted
The dropbox link worked, ta
What book IS it, out of interest?
Interesting point actually - I have been known to make the same point on other forums about taking photos and making music - both are so inexpensive to do now with better technology that whatever makes a good one example then becomes more difficult to find. A used bookshop owner I was talking to recently said that many modern books don't even get proofread now - they're just thrown out into the marketplace in the hope that some sell.
I enjoy reading memoirs from times gone by - I have a few dating from 1600s on (sadly in more recent editions!) by all sorts, ranging from visitors to the New World, a Bow Street Runner, landed gentry in the 18th Century, a Victorian shopkeeper... The language they use is so much more precise and clear. And of course the world they describe is now long gone and that fascinates me too.