General News Chat

[TheDeeDon]

You don’t need to go to Manchester to dig John Cooper Clarke’s biog I Wanna Be Yours though. Audiobook, with the boy himself reading it, is very highly regarded.

“I didn’t want the 15+ hours of this to end, and had I the time, I’d listen to it again right away. The bits of the book I’d previously dipped into were superbly written, but hearing the Bargain Basement Baudelaire read his own life story lifts it to another level altogether. Toppermost of the poppermost.

All human life is here, an authentically-informed whistle-stop tour of western culture and Clarke’s engagement with it for 60-odd years. In the section where he describes his 1965 life, taking in the YCL, a near-addiction to Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Jimmy Reed, Buddy Guy, Elmore James and Sugar Pie de Santo, I thought he was quoting from my imaginary diaries of a decade later.

It’s an unimpeachable talent who can honestly describe his narcotics habit, come out of it alive and triumphant, whilst finding humour in its squalid pathos.

Thanks to the local Library, still sentient despite the unremitting attacks by Gradgrindian opponents of literacy, (JCC is a stout defender of this basic educational right) ✊🏼 for lending me this.

Luxury. Pure, unashamed luxury…”

I took it out the library last Saturday and just over half way through it and have to say it is easily one of the best biographies I have ever read. I am just past the point where he was monkeysitting in Amsterdam

I could well imagine the audiobook being even better with his own distinctive voice enhancing his written words.

[57vintage]

I’d advise getting the audiobook, even if it’s just a BorrowBox loan like mine was. It’s over 15 hours long, but I could have listened to it right through again straight away.

Bits of his masterly narration keep coming back to me.

Yesterday, I passed the site where Kenning Car Hire used to be, and his summary of having binned his motor vehicle apprenticeship at Kennings in Manchester immediately came to mind:

"Karma Karma Karma Karma Karma Karmechanic".

Genius.

[Aldo1983]

Good lad.

[donsdaft]

Are you sure?

Maybe it’s a girl, or a sheep or something.

[Mason89]

Are you sure?

Maybe it’s a girl, or a sheep or something.

More curtain twitching

[donsdaft]

Hurray, it’s the thought police.

[Mason89]

You can think whatever you like & you’re absolutely right, that person could’ve been a girl, sheep or something. I would say a sheep would be quite unlikely but you never know.

The bit you’re missing, is that it has absolutely hee haw to do with you & that the person in question, shouldn’t be prejudged in a negative way. It’s really not that difficult.

[donsdaft]

I didn’t prejudge anything in a negative way.
Aldo prejudged it, not I.

Of course the person/ sheep involved could be accused of prejudging the Hungarian players, but that’s obviously ok.

[Aldo1983]

I didn’t prejudge anything in a negative way.
Aldo prejudged it, not I.

Of course the person/ sheep involved could be accused of prejudging the Hungarian players, but that’s obviously ok.

You are so woke.

[donsdaft]

Mason very nearly had a new earl, but it could have led to bullying apparently.

[donsdaft]

You are so woke.

Nah.

I’m happy to bite though.

I know you were impressed with the Hungarians really.

[Mason89]

Mason very nearly had a new earl, but it could have led to bullying apparently.

The People’s Free Socialist Republic of Dumbarton, neither needed or asked for an Earl. If we did, then Charlie Gibson would’ve got the gig.

[donsdaft]

Good story though.

Perhaps if you had changed the name to Smartbarton it would have helped.

[Mason89]

The name is anglicised. It should be Dunbarton.

[donsdaft]

Nice piece of local history, and the meaning of Dunbarton as opposed to Dumbarton?