Every 14 Days...(10)

My Name is Daphne Fairfax: A Memoir (Arthur Smith)

To me, Arthur Smith was a moaning old bastard that always seems to be reading an audio book whenever I’m in the car with my dad. More and more, I would see him on telly – and not just repeats of the Red Dwarf ‘Backwards’ episode, and eventually live at various Radio 4 recordings, as I myself became a moaning old bastard.

But I must admit I only really know the moaning old bastard Arthur Smith of the last decade; I know little of his time before he became either old, moaning and/or a bastard, and so for once, I actually read an autobiography that had featured some things I didn’t expect. For one, he’s not even called Arthur; he’s Brian to his friends – Arthur being his middle name – and his life has been one much more sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll than I had anticipated.

This isn’t the most revealing or creative memoir ever, but it doesn’t need to be, being well written and painting an interesting picture of stand-up from the 80s onwards, as well as life in South London over the latter half of the 20^th Century.

Days to read: 14

Days per book: 14.5

Burmese Days (George Orwell)

I remember having to read ‘Animal Farm’ in English Literature at school when I was about 13 and thought: ‘He’s done quite well there.’ Probably about 13 years later, I read that other famous book that he wrote and was of a similar opinion that he deserved a good ol’ fashioned slap on the back for it. I decided to wait a little less time before reading another of his novels, his first: ‘Burmese Days’.

Based on his time spent as a policeman in Burma it’s a tale of colonial life for Brits abroad in their new habitat with the ‘inferior’ natives. So controversial was it in raising issues regarding colonial rule, it wasn’t published in the UK for quite some time, and only then in a version less likely to raise stiff, upper eyebrows as to the attitudes and behaviour of the British out in the Empire and the forgotten nature of their existence back home.

Spend a good amount of time over a two day period reading this and you will start to think in early 20th Century Orwellian language, such is the descriptive nature of the language here. It is another work by him with brilliant social comment and paints a picture of a bleak society that goes unspoken. He really was good, wasn’t he? Here, have another slap on the back, my learned friend.

Days to read: 11

Days per book: 14.4

The Hell of it All (Charlie Brooker)

The third book of his articles about television and stuff in general taken from the Guardian, and is much more of the same. Though, sometimes I do think he should have edited out some of the specific ‘Big Brother’, ‘Apprentice’ and ‘X factor’ articles, as: a) I did/do not watch any; and b) most people will forget the contestants in these shows the week after they finish, let alone recall them two or three years down the line, making many articles, while funny, quite irrelevant.

Days to read: 13

Days per book: 14.3

So, that’s it. With my travelling in Japan for three months, I took seven (count them) books with me to get me through my time in Asia, starting with ‘Dawn of the Dumb’. I have now completed them all with best part of a month still to go, leaving me blank for a while. Oh no wait, my girlfriend’s arrived in Japan to bring me some more…