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I'm re-reading wee Andy Marr's "My Trade", which is not a list of his favourite rent-boys but a very dull potted history of British journalism.


I think he only wrote the 350+ pages so he could spend 50 of them tearing into David Montgomery, Charlie Wilson and the Mirror Group for what they did to the Indy (and Andy).

Bloody Foreigners - The Story of Immigration to Britain

by Robert Winder


Fascinating read that starts in pre-Roman times and higlights each major wave of immigration up to the modern day. I'm up to the hard-working Huguenots at present. The had a pretty nasty time of things under the Catholic Church in France so fled over here bringing much trade and skills with them. And we needed it after the Black Death had wiped a third off our population.


Great stuff.

I haven't seen that, ????. He says that he hates his face and TV presence, but perhaps he protesteth too much.


Sean, agreed. Marr wanted to run a highbrow paper for the 200,000 people in the UK willing to read lengthy articles from Fisk, McCrae and so on, and pay for them.


Monty wanted an aspirational lifestyle paper with articles about Rolex thefts and the like. And he had Kelvin Mackenzie on the board.


All the while co-owner O'Reilly, who hated the oiks too and would eventually buy them out, sat over the water watching them drive his price down and down, as Marr begged him to come to the rescue.

Ted - I agree, but I like him and his presenting style generally (The accents are hysterical in the way probably not intended though). It's ok but vignettes of people and issues of the time used as an explanation of how modern britain emerged so a bit history-lite for my tastes but amusing and I don't see much else on the schedules that I like.

I quite like Marr he's a very affable chap and his histories are entertaining if occasionally for the wrong reasons as noted.


I must say though his prime ministerial interview at number ten was the weakest political interview I've ever seen, it was more like a PPB!!


Mind you Private Eye REALLY has it in for him at the moment for using court injunctions to squash news stories (not that I'm particularly keen to find out who hes been boffing in all fairness)

I have been reading some of the Falco books by Lindsey Davis. Really quite fun, just private investigator stories set to a Roman backdrop. Apparently she takes care to make them accurate, and it is quite interesting picking up some little facts about daily life in Rome at that time. I really like the cynical lead character too.
  • 2 weeks later...

White Jazz by James Ellroy. His style in the later books is strange but makes Hammett and Chandler seem soft-boiled.

Got about three quarters through Hugo's Les Miserable. Great for social background of 19th century France, but very exhausting.

Live From Golgotha by Gore Vidal. Excellent satire for all atheists.

Yes, Huncamunca, American Tabloid is a great read. Do try the follow-up The Cold Six Thousand. I agree his style is disjointed.

I read somewhere this was to get more action in fewer words. The publisher told him to cut one down by several hundred pages and that style was his answer.

Shantaram by Gregory Roberts...fantastic read, set in India and really compelling, ranging from life in the slums, jail and gangs to war in Afghanistan (its not depressing..honest). And re-reading Three Men on a Bummell..by Jerome K Jerome. Fabulous. Just finished Alan Bennett's Talking Heads...great writer..

Brendan Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I know there are some of you who will appreciate

> this:

>

> 10000 comic books you must read



I'm glad that's a typo, you'd have to book a week's holiday just to peruse the full list.


Just finished The Girl Who Played With Fire. A cracking read, I'm already itching to get hold of the next in the series. Currently reading a bizarre japanese book lent to me by a colleague - Almost Transparent Blue, in which nothing actually seems to happen.

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