Tuesday, October 06, 2015
The Kindest Thing by Cath Staincliffe (2010)
Friday, September 20, 2013
Dr. Yes by (Colin) Bateman (Headline 2010)
It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times.
Spring was in the air, which was depressing enough, what with pollen, and bees, and bats, but my on/off girlfriend was also making my life miserable because of her pregnancy, which she continued to accuse me of being responsible for, despite repeatedly failing to produce DNA evidence. She whined and she moaned and she criticised. It was all part of a bizarre attempt to make me a better man. Meanwhile she seemed content to pile on the beef. She now had a small double chin, which she blamed on her conditions and I blamed on Maltesers. There was clearly no future for us. In other news, the great reading public of Belfast continued to embrace the internet for their purchases rather than No Alibis, this city's finest mystery bookshop, while my part-time criminal investigations, which might have been relied upon to provide a little light relief, had recently taken a sordid turn, leaving a rather unpleasant taste in the mouth, although some of that may have been Pot Noodle.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Blockade Billy by Stephen King (Cemetery Dance 2010)
Oh my God, you mean Blockade Billy. Nobody’s asked me about him in years. Of course, no one asks me much of anything in here, except if I’d like to sign up for Polka Night at the K of P Hall downtown or something called Virtual Bowling. That’s right here in the Common Room. My advice to you, Mr. King—you didn’t ask for it, but I’ll give it to you—is don’t get old, and if you do, don’t let your relatives put you in a zombie hotel like this one.
It’s a funny thing, getting old. When you’re young, people always want to listen to your stories, especially if you were in pro baseball. But when you’re young, you don’t have time to tell them. Now I’ve got all the time in the world, and it seems like nobody cares about those old days. But I still like to think about them. So sure, I’ll tell you about Billy Blakely. Awful story, of course, but those are the ones that last the longest.
Baseball was different in those days. You have to remember that Blockade Billy played for the Titans only ten years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, and the Titans are long gone. I don’t suppose New Jersey will ever have another Major League team, not with two powerhouse franchises just across the river in New York. But it was a big deal then—we were a big deal—and we played our games in a different world.
The rules were the same. Those don’t change. And the little rituals were pretty similar, too. Oh, nobody would have been allowed to wear their cap cocked to the side, or curve the brim, and your hair had to be neat and short (the way these chuckleheads wear it now, my God), but some players still crossed themselves before they stepped into the box, or drew in the dirt with the heads of their bats before taking up the stance, or jumped over the baseline when they were running out to take their positions. Nobody wanted to step on the baseline, it was considered the worst luck to do that.
Thursday, June 07, 2012
Decline & Fall: Diaries 2005-2010 by Chris Mullin (Profile Books 2010)
Friday, May 25, 2012
Stalin Ate My Homework by Alexei Sayle (Sceptre 2010)
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Children of the Sun by Max Schaefer (Soft Skull Press 2010)
'I know that. It's why I was reading about the strikes. But it's not enough. It explains why people like Nicky existed but not what it was like to be Nicky.'
'Then focus on that. Not the bloody occult. Nicky's out with his mates and they start queer-bashing. What goes through his head? He's in a club and sees a black anda white man snogging. What does he think? No, fuck "think": what does he feel? Does he feel sick, does it turn him on? Both? What's it like to be Nicky in his body - fucking and fighting? But enough with the magick, because if one thing's obvious from that programme, Nicky was a very pedestrian kind of nazi.'
'What do you mean,' I said, '"was"?'
Philip stared at me.
'The Register Office can't find his death certificate.'
'Oh for God's sake.'
'Funny, though, isn't it? Look, all I'm saying is you can't separate ideas from reality that neatly. Ideas create reality. It's all connected.'
'Everything's fucking connected. We know that by now, surely? Chaos theory: you have a wank and there's an earthquake off Sumatra. Doesn't tell us anything, apart from maybe you should wank less. I think I'm drunk. Come on, darling,' he said to Tom. 'Let's go.'
'What are you doing here?'
'Coppers can't tell the difference can they?' says Glenn. 'All just skinheads to them.' He smiles. He has somehow got right next to Tony; he speaks quietly, but does not whisper.
Tony can't hack the look in his eyes and turns away. 'Wanker.'
'There's a few of us here, not just me. Well, we're on CCTV now aren't we, don't want to do nothing heavy. But the nice officers are going to walk us all outside for your safety and that. And there's no cameras out there.'
'You're a fucking race traitor Glenn.' Tony, because he doesn't know what would happen otherwise, collaborates in the conversational hush: they could be queuing at a supermarket checkout. 'You're worse than a fucking nigger.'
'If you like. I just wanted to tell you before it kicks off. There's a truce between us as far as I'm concerned. For old time's sake. But I can't speak for the other lads, so I'd run if I was you. When you get the chance. Is this bonehead wander a friend of yours?
He kicks both ankles of the man in front, who stiffens.
'Know him Tony do you?' mutters Glenn.
'No.'
'Good, because when we get out of here he's dead. Did you hear me you daft nazi count?' Glenn kicks him again. 'When we get outside I'm going to kill you.' The man is visibly shaking.
Slowly the police begin to move the group towards the far end of the concourse. Beyond the cordon, watching reds yell taunts and insults. Some get a chant going, 'Police protect - nazi scum!,' until the objects of their criticism set dogs on them. Near the driveway for postal vans two men in donkey jackets conduct - amazingly - a paper sale. 'Buy a copy, officer?' one calls as the tense formation troops past. 'Read about how workers pay for the government failures. One pound solidarity price.' He waves it after them : Workers' Power', it says on a red background, and on black, hands off iraq!
Glenn mutters: 'How's your love life then?'
'Fuck off all right.'
'Touchy aren't you? Don't they know you're a poof these mates of yours?'
Tony says nothing. They are nearly at the closed-off bit where the new station is being built. In two minutes they will be outside.
'Bound to be some likely shags in this lot Tony. You know what these Europeans are like.'
From behind, Tony watches the face of the man Glenn has threatened to kill. He is listening; his pupil trembles against the corner of his eye.
'I can big you up if you like,' Glenn offers. 'You always were good in bed.'
The subdued shuffle of the skins' boots as they are herded sounds like rain against the roof.
'Better than Nicky if I had to be honest. To my taste anyway. Probably because in your own way you were even more fucked up. Did you see him on telly the other week? Bet that upset a few people.
Thursday, February 09, 2012
Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin (Harper 2010)
Edwards was still doing his best Monty Hall imitation: Let’s make a deal. Although he maintained publicly that he never desired to be a running mate again, Edwards was, in fact, quite open to the idea. But he was also willing to consider more modest rewards. Having been rebuffed on the notion of teaming up with Obama after Iowa, he once again dispatched Leo Hindery to make a revised offer.
“John will settle for attorney general,” Hindery emailed Tom Daschle.
Daschle shook his head. How desperate is this guy?
“Leo, this isn’t good for John,” Daschle replied. “This is ridiculous. It’s going to be ambassador to Zimbabwe next.”
Daschle warned Hindery that this new offer, like the last one, was sure to be rejected. And it was. When Obama heard about the suggested quid pro quo, he was incredulous.
That’s crazy, he told Axelrod. If I were willing to make a deal like that, I shouldn’t be president!
Edwards wondered if Clinton might be more open to cutting a deal. For all his previous distaste for her, he was beginning to find her more agreeable than Obama—less aloof, more brass-tacks. But Edwards knew his options were rapidly running out. He had no money, the press was ignoring him, and his vote totals were spiraling toward zero; he’d won just 3.8 percent in Nevada.
Then again, Rielle Hunter was only eight months pregnant.
So Edwards still had another month to strike a bargain.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Football, It's a Minging Life! by Rick Holden (DB Publishing 2010)
Let’s end with an amusing little anecdote at Watford. One weekend when Jean was away, a few of the players and I went out on the town after the game. We ended up at a night club in Hemel called the Living Room, which was renowned as a ‘grab a granny’ venue. Somehow, we’d been split up into two pairs. Myself and Lee Richardson, whose never-to-be-forgotten domestic skills included cleaning vomit up with the vacuum cleaner, and Tony Coton and Mel Rees, two daft ’keepers. Lee and I went for a curry, and the two rocket scientists went back to my house to wait for us to return. When we returned I found a cat-sized hole in the ceiling of my conservatory and Mingan sitting next to half a dozen empty lager cans. I was convinced for months that Mingan was the culprit; being a Leeds cat he would have no problem getting stuck into the drink. It hadn’t really occurred to me that the two stooges had got bored of waiting for me to return and had broken in through my bedroom window, putting their feet through the roof as they climbed. That’s goalkeepers for you. I cleared away the lager cans and, to this day, Jean thinks the hole was made by the cat jumping off the window ledge onto the conservatory roof.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Football – Bloody Hell! The Biography of Alex Ferguson by Patrick Barclay (Yellow Jersey Press 2010)
And there was politics.
Michael Crick, the distinguished broadcaster, journalist, United fan and chronicler of Ferguson's life, once described his politics thus: 'Like Alastair Campbell's, Ferguson's socialism is pragmatic: like a committed football fan, his prime concern is to see the team win.' To that I should add that he is tribal. His responses are less those of an intellectual than a partisan. In an interview with Campbell for the New Statesman in 2009, he declared: 'I grew up believing Labour was the party of the working man, and I still believe that.' The first reader to respond emailed from Glasgow: 'Ferguson is remembering a dream.'
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson (Little Brown and Company 2010)
Cruel and unusual punishment, he thought. He had been around violence in one form or another all his life, not always on the receiving end of it, but you had to draw the line somewhere. A small, helpless dog seemed like a good place to draw that line.
He followed the man out of the park. The man's car was parked nearby and he opened the boot and plucked up the dog and flung it inside where it cowered, shivering and whimpering.
"You just wait, you little bastard," the man said. He already had his mobile phone open, holding it to one ear as he raised a warning finger to the dog in case it made a move to escape. "Hey, babe, it's Colin," he said, his voice turning oily, a cage-fighting Romeo.
He frowned, imagining what would happen to the dog when the man got it home. Colin. It seemed unlikely it would be good. He stepped forward, tapped "Colin" on the shoulder, said, "Excuse me?" When Testosterone Man turned round, he said, "on guard."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Colin said and he said, "I'm being ironic," and he delivered a vicious and satisfying uppercut to Colin's diaphragm. Now that he was no longer subject to institutional rules governing brutality he felt free to hit people at will. He might have been around violence all his life but it was only recently that he was beginning to see the point of it. It used to be that his bark was worse than his bite, now it was the other way round.
His philosophy where fighting was concerned was to keep clear of anything fancy. One good, well-placed blow was usually enough to lay a man down. The punch was driven by a flash of anger. There were days when he knew who he was. He was his father's son.
Right enough, Colin's legs went from beneath him and he dropped to the ground, making a face like a suffocating fish. Strange squeaking and squealing noises came from his lungs as he fought for breath.
He squatted down next to Colin and said, "Do that to anyone or anything again - man, woman, child, dog, even a fucking tree - and you're dead. And you'll never know whether or not I'm watching you. Understand?" The man nodded in acknowledgment even though he still hadn't managed to take a breath, looked in fact like he might never take another one. Bullies were always cowards at heart. His phone had clattered to the pavement and he could hear a woman's voice saying, "Colin? Col - are you still there?"
He stood up and stepped on the phone and ground it into the pavement. Unnecessary and ridiculous but somehow satisfying.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Beating the Fascists: The Untold Story of Anti-Fascist Action by Sean Birchall (Freedom Press 2010)
This insidiously debilitating idea that racism was in "white peoples' genes", according to a National Black Caucus speaker (Black Flag, issue 203, autumn 1993), gained influence in the 1980s when it formed the basis for 'racial awareness training' (RAT) mainly used in the public sector. RAT was theoretically underpinned by the writings of an American academic, Judith Katz. She believed racism is "a psychological disorder . . . deeply embedded in white people from a very early age, on both a conscious and unconscious level" and that "being white . . . implies being racist" ('Racism, Myths and Realities', International Socialism 95, summer 2002).
From that perspective even the slightest hint of reslstance served only to confirm the original prognosis. For liberals who subscribed to the Katz theory, members of the worklng class needed to prostrate themselves completely simply ln order to be tolerated. In this world view the highest honour any whlte worklng class activist could expect would be to qualify, after serving a considerable time on probation, as a sort of 'racist anti-racist'. Not too surprisingly, militant body language was never going to be sufficiently humble to pass muster. Nor was Jasper's attltude so uncommon. Another Voice columnist, Tony Sewell, also took AFA to task for being "predominately white and male." Clearly it never crossed hls mlnd to consider what effect the common or garden prejudices regularly displayed by hlm and his fellow columnist may have had in discouraging black youth from doing their bit, thus ensuring groups llke AFA remained predominately "white man's business". Instead of any real insight, he offered up some cod psychology. "Their [AFA] deslre to meet violence with violence on behalf of oppressed black people is only an excuse for white men to have a good ruck. This type of rivalry has became a king of war game, where racism is the red rag for men to test their masculinity" (The Voice 28th February 1995).
Of course, in one way he was right. Because, for the vast majority of militants, the idea of AFA fighting are on behalf of oppressed black people would certainly have been regarded as utter nonsense. And while the casual racist comments ln the presence of any AFA activist at the time rarely went unchecked, wlth physical retribution not being an response, as an organisation AFA was at pains to make clear the underpinning for their 'war', as they saw, it had very little to do with race, and absolutely everything to do with class.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Document and Eyewitness: an Intimate History of Rough Trade by Neil Taylor (Orion Books 2010)
Geoff Travis: Alan Horne used to come in and play his Andy Warhol games. He was always a bit miffed with me because when he originally came down looking for a distribution deal and played me Orange Juice's 'Falling and Laughing'. I listened to it and quite liked it but didn't say it was the best single I'd heard in my life and that reaaly annoyed him. He went back to Scotland and Orange Juice made 'Blue Boy' and it got Single of the Week in Melody Maker. I read the review, listened to the record and loved it and said to myself that maybe I had been wrong about them. So I called up Alan and offered him a distribution deal. I think that not having embraced Alan's genius immediately counted as a big blow against me.