Why is it that so many crap ranting books are being published? It’s very disturbing to see them cluttering up the floors of Borders and Waterstones in the run-up to Christmas.
And most of them seem to have been penned by Talksport DJs. If I was at that station and didn’t have a Christmas book out, I’d be on to my agent pronto.
So we’ve got Undaunted: The Shocking Truth Behind The Popular Shock-Jock by Jon Gaunt (if the puns in the book are as bad as the cover name, then it must be even worse than I’d have expected) at the princely sum of £16.99, Both Barrels From Brazil: My War Against the Numpties by Alan Brazil (with Mike Parry, another Talksport DJ who obviously “helps” Brazil string his “thoughts” together) at £18.99, and Almost a Celebrity: A Lifetime of Night-Time by James Whale at £18.99.
Then there are some perennial “favourites” with Jeremy Clarkson, who gets worse with age, releasing Don’t Stop Me Now at a massive £20.00, and a second title from Chris Moyles – The Difficult Second Book at £17.99.
If you’ve got half an hour to spare and a twenty pound note kicking around then you could read anyone of these titles. Obviously, most of them are going to sale for a maximum of half that price in your local Asda, but really – why bother? If those books appeal to you, when are you going to get a chance to read them? Isn’t all your time taken up making phonecalls to Talksport and masturbating over a copy of Top Gear magazine?
Save the money, and find a good real old-fashioned pub. Pop in around 11.00am and join some of the regular old men in there. Enter into their conversation, and you’ll hear the same wordly wisdom, and get a few drinks in at the same time. And you won’t end up with a tome so embarrassing that you have to hide it underneath your Complete Playboy Playmates coffee table book.
[UPDATE] Quite disturbingly, since I looked up Amazon links to those titles above (only so you can mock, not so you can buy), Amazon has now started highlighting these and similar titles automatically when I go there. The perils of using Amazon logged in.
Scary.
It reminds me of a post from years ago entitled “My Tivo Thinks I’m Gay.” The chap involved was convinced that his Tivo (which records fare similar to that which it knows you’ve watched to try and guess your programming likes) started recording programmes with gay themes. He overcompensated by deliberately recording “butch” programming like war films to try to put his sexuality “straight” with his Tivo.