Public service

I recently found more history in my parents’ loft: the 1983 edition of the IBA’s Television and Radio book.

A hardback book photographed on a dark surface. The cover reads "Television & Radio 1983" in large red and white bold lettering, with the subtitle "IBA Guide to Independent Broadcasting" along the bottom. The cover features a grid of six colour photographs of television personalities — three men and one woman in formal attire in the top row, and three further individuals, including a man and woman pictured together, in the bottom row. The styling and photography are typical of the early 1980s. — The IBA’s 1983 guide to independent broadcasting, preserved.

Following yesterday’s nostalgia fest, I recently found more history in my parents’ loft: the 1983 edition of the IBA’s Television and Radio book. They used to publish one of these every year, providing an insight into the world of independent, not commercial, television and radio. Reading it now, it feels like a time capsule from a different era of broadcasting that seems familiar but, somehow, a bit off.

What’s most interesting about this edition is that it covers the birth of Channel Four (which came on air the month before publication, in November 1982) and the launch of TV-am, which followed in February 1983. It tells us that the senior presenting team at TV-am will be “informal and conversational”, while Channel Four is required to be complementary to ITV to avoid competing for ratings. The book is full of material about ITV shows. It was the era of ‘Tales of the Unexpected’, ‘The Gentle Touch’, and ‘The Jewel in the Crown’, ‘World in Action’ and ‘News at Ten’. I think only the last of those remains on screen regularly.

The word ‘soaps’ is not used; they are referred to as drama serials, which feels out of step with how television executives would discuss them today. The book says that “a tremendous amount of skill and thought needs to be put into a drama serial to make it so abidingly popular’, and we still regularly have Crossroads and Crown Court on the telly, while the word Farm remains firmly attached to Emmerdale.

What’s clear is that this is from an era when television had to be a bit of everything: plays, drama, serials, science, religion, children, light entertainment, and the arts. Yet, in the book’s introduction, we learn that the pace of technology development is quickening and the arrival of direct broadcast satellite services “now seems a likelihood for the middle of the decade” – and what a change to the broadcasting landscape that would bring. We’d end up with channels dedicated to every conceivable genre of programming.

A double-page spread from the IBA Guide to Independent Broadcasting, Television & Radio 1983, showing the "ILR Areas" section. Each entry lists a local independent radio station with its directors, senior executives, address, frequencies, and a small regional map showing transmitter locations. Stations visible include Chiltern Radio (Luton/Bedford), Maidstone & Medway (contract advertised), Piccadilly Radio (Manchester), Gwent Broadcasting (Newport), Radio Trent (Nottingham), Hereward Radio (Peterborough), Plymouth Sound, Radio Victory (Portsmouth), Red Rose Radio (Preston & Blackpool), and Radio 210 (Reading). Station logos are printed alongside each entry. The layout uses pink section headings on a white background, with a two-column design across both pages. — The Original Broadcast Postcode Lottery

There are 47 local radio stations listed in the book; many were yet to launch, and the Humberside, Maidstone, and Reigate services had only just been advertised, with no contractors selected. One struck me as odd: Northside Sound was listed for Londonderry, and, given I consumed everything I could about the world of local radio at the time, I was surprised that I couldn’t recall it. The forums at Digital Spy suggest that “Northside Sound failed to raise sufficient capital for its launch,” and that the frequencies were served by neighbouring Downtown Radio. Back in 1983, I would have proudly said I could name every independent local radio station. Perhaps that’s not true.

The book is full of behind-the-scenes technical information; I think the technical standards were paramount and, possibly, more important than the content to the public service mindset. I read that a television relay near Tintagel in Cornwall was built using wind, solar, and batteries as an experiment, which strikes me as a green agenda way ahead of its time. The text service that used to accompany commercial television, Oracle, has a couple of pages devoted to it. In 1983, this was very much cutting-edge technology.

What strikes me most, however, is not the memory of programmes or services provided, but the tone of the book. It’s very much from the era when broadcasting was a public service. All the radio and television companies were contractors to the IBA, which was ultimately responsible for regulation and transmission and answerable to Parliament for everything broadcast. The market was not necessarily the primary driver for these services. The world has moved on; we now prize competition and choice over fewer, broader services. We have more ways to receive content than ever. At over forty years old, this book is a wonderful snapshot of a time when television and radio were run for the public good.

Reading Challenge 2025

A reflective review of the books I read in 2025.

Row of thriller and spy novels on a bookshelf including titles by Sarah Vaughan-Williams, Linda Meiklem, Alice Winn, Noel Warrell, George Orwell, Mark Billingham, Richard Osman, Christopher Fowler, and Robert Ludlum, displaying varied spine colours from orange to black, — Thriller collection: where plot twists live in rainbow order.

Last week, I finally got around to photographing the books I read last year. They can go to a charity at the weekend. I know I am unlikely to re-read them. I failed my reading challenge: on 12 of 15 books read. At least it’s the equivalent of one a month.

As always, there’s a mix of books that I think are interesting and detective stories, which are a guilty pleasure and, when on holiday, I can read in a day or two.

I started the year reading Bent Flyvbjerg’s How Big Things Get Done. Does it contain the secret to delivering large-scale projects on time and on budget? Maybe. Get your team right and plan to the tiniest degree. Don’t be the Sydney Opera House, be Frank Gehry. I read it because we have a large-scale project coming up at work; not sure how much I actually took away.

I spent a few years working at Facebook and was interested in Sarah Wynn-Williams’ Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work, as she was at the company when I was, working at very different layers of the business. I wondered how much of the company she writes about I’d recognise. I think what’s most scary about this book is that, for most of the people I worked with and me, we wouldn’t recognise this from our experiences, yet it rang weirdly true. The villain is very one-sided in this story.

The villain in the next book is a bit less clear, although at the time, the world would have pointed to Rupert Murdoch. The End of the Street by Linda Melvern might have been my favourite book that I read last year. It’s the tale of how the Fleet Street unions were defeated and how the newspaper industry changed forever. There was passion for the newspaper business from both sides. News Corp. felt it couldn’t change the business incrementally, so it adopted an extreme modernisation approach. Perhaps newspapers survived a little longer because of it, perhaps not. Given where the newspaper industry is today, it feels like a historical story. But the innovator’s dilemma is real. Whether this was the right approach remains unclear.

In Memoriam by Alice Winn is a very well-regarded novel, but this was my second attempt to read it. I am glad I stuck with it. Gaunt and Ellwood, at a public school and in the trenches. All their friends are dying all around them. Eventually, I was hooked. I really enjoyed this even though it’s not the kind of novel I’d usually read.

Another book I tried to read before is Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. And I nearly gave up this time, too, but somewhere along the line, I got hooked. Is the Ministry of Truth even more real today than it was when it was imagined?

Warnell & Vastmans’ Agile Bullshit was another book I read because of work. Agile ways of working are a nice theory, and I’ve seen them successfully implemented in practice, but when the process generates more discussion than the outcome, then something is wrong. I thought this book would back up some of my thinking. It didn’t. And I still think the word ‘ceremonies’ to mean meetings is one of the most pompous things about agile.

The next four books are all detective-based and a cracking good read. Mark Billingham’s The Wrong Hands is the second of his books that I read. An easy read, with a decent plot, if you don’t mind severed hands in a briefcase. Next, it’s back to The Thursday Murder Club in The Last Devil to Die. This time, the case leads the team into the antiques business, which practically screams ‘cosy murder mystery’, and this gives you exactly that, with Richard Osman’s brilliant, engaging style.

I believe one of my great discoveries of the past few years is Christopher Fowler’s Bryant & May series. They always seem to be on the verge of the Peculiar Crimes Unit being closed. In Off the Rails, they have a week to find a killer, with the twist that they’ve caught this killer before. In On the Loose, the unit is closed, yet the case must be solved. I love this series and wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone. The intricate London details are phenomenally woven into all the stories without seeming out of place.

As a fan of Robert Ludlum’s Bourne series, I found The Janson Directive at the back of the shelf featuring a new character. Paul Janson, a former undercover agent for a deniable government agency known as Consular Operations, is asked to do one last job: rescue the billionaire Peter Novak. Today, we know just how bad the world’s billionaire class can be, and their views on reshaping the world are best ignored. I don’t think it was written as a manual for bored rich people to do bad in the world, but 13 years after its writing, bits of it are strangely contemporary. Also, another cracking good action adventure.

I ended the year by completing On Intelligence: The History of Espionage and the Secret World, which somehow got recommended after Nineteen Eighty-Four. There’s a lot in this book, and it offers fascinating insights into how intelligence works, with real examples from throughout history. If you want to know how intelligence (on both sides) ensured a successful D-Day landing, then that’s in one of the chapters. It’s an accessible telling of the espionage world, but as with all things secretive, you can’t help but wonder what’s not being told.

Taking A Moment to Read

Stop flipping through a social feed and really read.

On this day last January, as part of my #SOLS goals, I wrote about a challenge that I had set myself to complete during 2017: to read 12 books in the year. In January 2018’s first post, I discussed my failed writing challenge and mentioned I would return to the subject of books. Of my 2017 aims, the reading objective was much more successful.

Towards the end of 2016, I realised that I was not spending enough time reading: it was too easy to flip open my phone and aimlessly scroll through a social media feed. I have a lot of books that I would like to read, but I would go for months without starting one and, when I did, I would only skim pages. People I admired are often quoted as saying how important books were to them and their careers. In my post, I quoted Bill Gates and linked to a list by Barack Obama. Equally useful would have been reading lists from Elon Musk, Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos. The signs all suggested I should read more.

At work, sometime in late 2016, each member of our team committed to a personal goal, and I decided mine would be to stop flipping through a social feed on my phone while I sat on the train to and from work. I was going to read a book and, what’s more, I decided that they would be old-fashioned, bookshop-bought, books. As January came around, I decided my reading objectives ought to be public, and so I joined the Goodreads challenge.

Of the 14 books I completed, I found Elon Musk’s biography inspirational and Jony Ive’s story was remarkable, showing how vital your passions are in life. David Ogilvy’s experience, told through The King of Madison Avenue, was a fascinating blast from the advertising past. I read David Lloyd’s Radio Moments book – a marvellous insight into life in the British radio industry from the 1970s to the present day – in one sitting on a flight I was taking for work. That one brought back a lot of memories. It took considerably longer to get through Paul Theroux’s The Old Patagonian Express which I found a hard to plough through even though the voyage across the South American continent sounded fascinating.

My favourite books were both surprises. The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century by George Friedman was an imaginative look into the future and what the world will be like in one hundred years. Although I will never know how much of it comes true, it’s fun to imagine and more accessible to comprehend when there are the theories George brings to support his predictions. The other big surprise was also a story of the future – and the past – in Elan Mastai’s novel All Our Wrong Todays.

I ended the year with perhaps the least challenging of all the books I read across the 12 months. A trio of crime/action fiction novels – from Grisham, Connelly and Flynn – was a lovely easy read to end the year: all three were gripping in a way only master story-tellers like these can do.

What was most unexpected was that I discovered that I was enjoying reading and, even more, the act of turning pages in a book was especially satisfying. At the end of the day, I was arriving home more relaxed, and I believe much of that was to do with the ability to focus on something other than work. My boss encouraged all of his team to commit to something through the year, and I’m happy I chose a book challenge because it reminded me how much I enjoy – and can learn from – something more in-depth than a 160 character social post.

My Goodreads Reading Challenge 2017 can be found here. I have publicly committed to reading a few more books in 2018, so you might want to follow my progress.

A Reading Challenge for 2017

I made a simple resolution as we went into 2017: I would drink an extra small bottle of water everyday to improve my hydration. So far, that one is working. Back in December I also decided that, on the last Sunday of every month, I would write something for this site. It wasn’t really a resolution, rather an updated version of the Blog Every Wednesday in August task I set myself a few years ago: the idea was to write something here to make paying for the hosting worth it. This new commitment was given the title “Sermon Of the Last Sunday”. As with all things these days, there’s a hashtag #SOLS. See if you can work out which came first: the series name or the hashtag.

Also at the end of last year I set myself a Goodreads challenge to read 12 books in 2017. This shouldn’t be the hardest commitment as it’s just one book a month but, if I succeed, I will end up reading more than I did last year. There are plenty of people that inspired me to try this challenge (which you can follow on Goodreads) but, possibly, I made my decision after reading Bill Gates’ favourite books of 2016. He manages an eclectic list of recommendations. I hope to have as diverse a range of books on my ‘has read’ list by the end of the year.

More recently, Entertainment Weekly published a list of Every book Barack Obama recommended during his presidency. Another eclectic, and inspirational, list. Seriously, if he can be such an voracious reader and run America then I can read 12 books this year. As Bill Gates says,

Still, reading books is my favorite way to learn about a new topic. I’ve been reading about a book a week on average since I was a kid. Even when my schedule is out of control, I carve out a lot of time for reading. [source]

So, when trying to come-up with the first SOLS entry I thought I’d review one of the books that ended last year. It was the book I was reading when I read Bill’s list; it was fascinating and a little hard-going at times but it took me out of my daily commute and made me think about something else. Which, I think, is something a good book should do. I have reviewed books here before, and I am not sure I will attempt to review all 12, but it’s such a well written book I’d recommend adding it to your own reading list.

I’m grateful to the staff of Waterstones in Chichester who persuaded me that this was a book worth reading as I was browsing their store at some point last year. I don’t often spend time just wandering book shops but there was an opportunity and I took it. I’m very glad I did.

Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot

For some people, a job takes you to the same place each day, surrounded by colleagues who you see daily and get to know over time. Not quite so for pilots, especially those flying long haul, where the variation in crew is almost as changeable as the constantly altering view from the cockpit.

Mark Vanhoenacker, a British Airways 747 long haul pilot, writes about flight through series of chapters documenting the experiences of moving from one part of the world to another with chapters such as Place, Wayfinding, Night and Return.

It’s not a biography of a pilot, a technical guide to flying nor a travelogue rather it’s a rhapsodic love affair with flight and all it involves and, so, it’s a little bit of all those things put together with some beautifully written, almost lyrical, prose. Don’t expect a chronological guide to flight but a collection of chapters that take their subject and describe the experience from the complex to the minutia; written from a vantage of someone obviously captivated by the charm of flight.

The style is vivid and descriptive, but the detail of the language can sometimes make reading it hard work. Don’t let that put you off because it’s worth a little perseverance to get close to understanding why the experience of flight it both magical and disorienting at the same time.

Footnotes

Skyfaing, A Journey with a Pilot, available at Amazon.

Elsewhere: An Insiders View Of Government

The diary format is easy to dip in to – and that had been my intention – but I found I was hooked and could spend many hours reading; it’s not a slimline book!

A just posted a review on Goodreads and Amazon of Chris Mullin’s account of life inside the Labour government.

A View from the Foothills by Chris Mullin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As an insiders view of life as a Labour MP and, at times, as a junior Minsiter (transport and environment/Africa) this is a compelling read. The diary format is easy to dip in to – and that had been my intention – but I found I was hooked and could spend many hours reading; it’s not a slimline book! The inner working of government are fascinating: Mullin has a particular dislike for the poorly written speeches he was expected to deliver; the excesses of Ministerial cars and the fact that, as a Junior Minister, it seems impossible to actually get anything done. It’s interesting to see that a relatively few number of MPs – mainly those nearest the Prime Minister – can actually do very much at all; the rest expected to tow the party line. Mullin was not that close to The Man but he certainly has a different view than most of us. Of most interest historically, of course, are the discussions that lead to the UK’s support of the Iraqi war but, if you’re interested in how much of government works, this is possibly better positioned than some of the bigger names.

View all my reviews

Jack: Straight From The Gut

Lessons about people’s capabilities and their contributions to business are valuable for all.

Jack Welch was Chairman and CEO of General Electric for twenty years, and this is a book about his time from joining to leaving the company that became his life. Apparently, Jack was seen as the ‘toughest boss in America’, and I suspect the book is trying to soften the historical edges a little. What comes across clearly is a commitment to a company and a desire to grow it. Many businesses could do better with firmer management and a realistic look at the way things are done. Jack Welch doesn’t seem to be the kind of CEO to run scared of change, no matter how painful that may be. Throughout the book, he stresses the importance of allowing good people to excel and that poor performers are probably better elsewhere. It seems a ruthless approach, but it appears to have worked for GE, and, I think, Jack would argue, it worked better for the people involved. Don’t expect a management handbook as ‘Straight From The Gut’ is too human (and full of golf stories) to be seen as a Director’s guide, but it is an extremely readable insight into big business. If you don’t like his approach, I believe there are interesting lessons about the capabilities of people and what they can bring to business for anybody, regardless of the size of the company or the position you hold within it.

The Whispering Years

It’s not dull or bland in anyway but, perhaps because there’s a little of the 60s hippy left in Bob Harris, you feel the measured approach is entirely appropriate.

You really do get to appreciate ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris’ love of music through his autobiography, ‘The Whispering Years‘. You’ll read in the blurb that he’s been married three times; has had to re-start his career from scratch several times and almost lost his record collection to a fellow Radio 1 disc jockey. What you may not get from reviews is a feeling of the genuine passion he has for the music and how big a role some of the greatest musicians of the last thirty years have played in his life. You feel as uneasy as Bob appeared to over the fame that The Old Grey Whistle Test brought him and you will feel somewhat betrayed when Radio One remove him (I’d forgotten he was the voice launched round-the-clock Radio One in August 1990). Throughout his career he stuck to his passion – the music – and shunned the computer generated radio that dominates the airwaves today. His interview technique was considered ‘less than penetrating’ in the past but that gentle approach serves him well in book form. It’s not dull or bland in anyway but, perhaps because there’s a little of the 60s hippy left in Bob Harris, you feel the measured approach is entirely appropriate. If you love music (and not just progressive rock) or enjoy his radio programmes then The Whispering Years will be engaging, fascinating and inspiring.

Lucky Man: A Memoir

An absorbing and very well-written book that proves that people in the public eye and just like the rest of us.

Lucky Man is not a typical Hollywood star autobiography. While it is peppered with references to the television shows and movies Michael J Fox has made it is – most definately – not a name-dropping ‘look at me’ celebrity obsessed biography. Yes, it’s an insight – although not too revealing – into the inner sanctum of Hollywood stars but it’s very much grounded in the real world. It deals with the highs and lows of a film career and the pleasures and pressures that brings. When reading the book you really do feel as if Michael J Fox has been able to take a step back and look upon his own career from outside. He’s able to analyse the fame, the money and identify both the good and the problematic that his career has brought him. However, from the beginning of the book, his upbringing and his rise to (and through) fame are placed in context by the Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis. That diagnosis has allowed Fox to asses what’s important to him and write a book that shows him as a genuine, warm and open individual. There’s no sentimentality about the book and he does detail how the disease effects him but, at no point, do you feel like an intruder into his private life. Despite the difficult nature of the Parkinson’s Disease descriptions, Lucky Man is an absorbing and very well-written book that proves that people in the public eye and just like the rest of us.

21 Dog Years: Doing Time At Amazon.Com

It’s quite easy to get sucked into Mike Daisey’s ‘21 Dog Years: Doing Time At Amazon.Com‘ as he moves from dilettante to corporate business development guy. On the journey we learn he is one of the (mythological?) freaks that Amazon initially wanted to help launch and then staff its growing customer service division. We learn about the training, the call-time targets, the lack of windows, the Chicken Orzo Salad and Jeff obsessions.

Unlike Robert Spector’s ‘Amazon.Com: Get Big Fast‘ this is a tale from the inside but how much is exaggerated for comic effect is unclear. For sure, life in an under-staffed call centre – where if you don’t work all hours you’re seen as letting the team down – is not the glamorous side of any business and the world of fast growing online books sellers can be no exception. The dreams that all would be multi-millionaires on the back of huge stock rises are also not unusual to any tale of this era. Perhaps the thought of sending the free books to customers on the database isn’t typical of the dot-com boom but the frenzied ‘1-click Christmas’ period will be familiar to many in a start-up venture.

Daisey’s book is flagged as a comic tale but it takes a while for the comedy to warm-up. In fact, it’s only towards the end that I felt there were some laugh-out-loud moments but don’t let that put you off. ’21 Dogs Years’ in well written and compelling. You really do want to know what Mike’s going to do at the end. Don’t look for an insight into business strategies of that time but you will get a view of the craziness of life in the trenches of rapidly growing business.

Downsize This!

Inspired by Stupid White Men to read another of Michael Moore‘s books, I came away thinking that Downsize This was actually a better work. Sure, some of the scenarios are silly (‘What America Needs Is A Makeover’) and many of the examples a little dated (some have been overtaken by world events). It’s also true that some of the humour doesn’t seem to sit well with the subjects but it is, nonetheless, a very welcome voice in the sea of opinions.

Moore does attempt to be humorous with his staple subjects: corporate greed and accountability, right to freedom/life and social and environmental responsibility. Like Stupid White Men the book makes subjects accessible that are often not covered by mainstream media.

If Stupid White Men has made you think about reading more then this is a good start if you’re happy to have many more American examples as the main topic. If you’re looking for something a little more British then this is not the book for you.

Read other people’s opinions at Amazon UK.

Stupid White Men

Probably the most famous of American Liberal thinkers at the moment,Michael Moore is a US treasure, and they should treat him as such. Instead, the land of free speech tried to prevent this book from being published following the attacks on the World Trade Centre.

Thankfully, this book made it out. It’s certainly very US-centric (it was, after all, written for that market), but many of the points apply to much of the Western world. While suggesting that “we live in a society that rewards and honours corporate gangsters”, Moore does it with a humour that’s accessible and easily read.

Much political writing is hard to read, whereas this is written in small chunks and is easily digested. For those familiar with liberal writings, much of Moore’s work may appear superficial, but that’s to do with the style rather than the content. It is Moore’s style that has made this book number one on so many book lists, but it’s the content that people will remember. For the British reader, the challenge is to see where our democracy is following the US lead.

Why should you read this book? Because it puts the greed of the consumption society into perspective and genuinely makes you think about the society in which we live.

You can read other people’s opinions of the book at Amazon UK

Elsewhere: Blitzed! The Autobiography of Steve Strange

In some respects it’s a fascinating tale of fame and hedonism. If, however, you’ve read biographies of other Eighties pop stars then you’ve heard a lot of it before. The story seems to have been repeated: humble beginnings drive creativity which lead to fame and then there is a some-kind of fa

I’ve just finished Blitzed! The autobiography of Steve Strange and posted my review to Amazon:

Blitzed! The Autobiography of Steve Strange

I’ve just finished Blitzed! The autobiography of Steve Strange and posted my review to Amazon:

Steve Strange was an icon of the Eighties music scene, a visionary and a leader. I suspect he’s often overlooked, but his contribution was vital. His clubs kick-started a movement, and the band he fronted,Visage, were pioneers of what became the New Romantics: make-up, big hair, big hats, and even bigger shirt lapels and cuffs. From the beginning of the decade, and out of the punk movement, came the classic Fade To Grey. Visage and Steve Strange were combining fashion and music in a radical new way.
Blitzed has an informal style, which makes it quite readable. Strange name-drops his way through a decade and apologises quite a lot for his behaviour. It’s a cautionary tale of a rise to fame, money mismanagement, and drug addiction. It’s the story of London squats and club-land rivalry and of a community that knew they were changing nightclubs, the fashion scene and music – and doing it all in a few short years. It is a struggle to stop a man falling over the edge and trying to make sense of a life where once his name was in lights, but the money is long gone.
In some respects, it’s a fascinating tale of fame and hedonism. If, however, you’ve read biographies of other Eighties pop stars, then you’ve heard a lot of it before. The story seems to have been repeated: humble beginnings drive creativity, which leads to fame, and then there is a kind of fall (usually, drink or drug-induced). Blitzed is an enjoyable read, but Boy George will give you more, and Marc Almond will take you further. If you knew the club scene of the time, there’s an insight into the door policies of the new breed of Eighties clubs and how they worked. If you are looking for the story of Visage, then, obviously, it’s covered here, and this will be a valuable reference – but it’s more about the man than the band.
If you remember the decade, then you’ll read this book regardless, but, sadly, I felt there could have been a little more. Nonetheless, Blitzed reinforces Steve Strange’s rightful place as a leader of a movement that’s certainly not about to fade away.

You can buy Blitzed!: The Autobiography of Steve Strange at Amazon now.

Elsewhere: The Kenneth Williams Diaries

The diaries are very well written and Davies’ editing not intrusive. Williams certainly didn’t appear to edit himself and the result is a frank and articulate book.

In my quest to ensure that I review every book that I read for Amazon (because I find other people’s reviews very useful) I’ve added my latest. It’s for the Kenneth Williams Diaries. I seemed to be reading them for ages – there are forty years worth of entries. It’s interesting for me because, during the time I was reading them I have also been maintaining this blog. While this isn’t quite a diary, the process is very similar and one paragraph in the diaries struck me as interesting:

The preoccupation with diary writing is caused by various things: the desire to keep a record which can be useful later, and committing to paper what can’t be communicated to a mentor … oh! all kinds of reasons, but fundamentally it is about loneliness.

Is it? Maybe it is. Who knows?

The Kenneth Williams Diaries, Edited by Russell Davies (Harper Collins, 1993)

I honestly think Kenneth Williams was unique. He certainly seemed to hate much about himself and didn’t have a great deal of time for a lot of other people. Sadly, the Diaries’ reputation precedes them and I expected more of the bitchiness that he is – supposedly – famed for. Despite that, there is plenty of Kenneth’s acid tongue in this book. His barbs are aimed squarely at his fans, his colleagues and the shows he felt obliged to work in. Some of the most intriguing insights are those that relate to the Carry On film series. Before Carry On made him famous, he was a well-respected stage actor. The Carry On films made him legendary (and wealthy) but he often felt they were beneath him.

Kenneth is well aware of his own nature. On 20 March 1987, he writes, “Everyone was v. nice to me … it is extraordinary that I’m so liked because I’m invariably rude & tetchy”, and that sums up much of the book. You get a sense of love for the theatre, plays, and poetry and even for some of the work. However, he is also offensive to many and seemed to have few good words for much of British Theatre. Much of the hate stems from inner turmoil over the lack of companionship in his life (“Never to speak of my love for a man”) and from the frustrations of his nature. Obsessed by noise and cleanliness, the very act of living seems painful – and in the end, his illness and genuine pain appear to get too much for him.

The diaries are very well written and Davies’s editing is not intrusive. Williams certainly didn’t appear to edit himself and the result is a frank and articulate book. Words seem to flow easily which is, perhaps, not surprising for a man who made a living in the final years of his life from his large collection of humorous anecdotes. Spanning over forty years it’s hard to keep track of the players in Kenneth’s life and at 800 pages it’s not a light read. Nevertheless, the diaries are a vivid, malicious and (at times) very funny read into the world of a man who, in his day, was considered outrageous.

Inspirational Eden

Tim Smit provides an insight into the group vision that resulted in one of the more successful Millennium projects – Eden. And the fact that it is the work of a committed group of people is not lost on the reader. Smit regularly repeats the mantra that Eden was only developed thanks to the work of a wide range of individuals from contractors to councils, and not forgetting the plant-men.

If you want to understand some details behind the way such projects are developed then this is a book you should read. When the project was floundering while all the funding partners came together then Tim Smit was there and he relives it through the book. Sometimes you wonder how it call came together.

On the other hand, if you are a plant-lover, gardener or horticulturalist then this is also a book you should read. Smit tells the fascinating story of the development of the biome concepts and the plants they chose to grow. More importantly he discusses the relationship between man and the natural surroundings we inhabit; debating our fragile relationship with a range of environments along the way.

However, what you take from this book is a mixture of all of the above. Landscaping, plant husbandry and environmental considerations sit alongside planning, funding, road building and visitor education projects. It’s one man’s personal account rather than a definitive history and the cast of characters seems endless and, sometimes, confusing. However, the determination and vision that drove the project; the commitment and enthusiasm of all the people and the role Eden believes it should be playing on the world stage are all presented in an accessible, very readable account of, what seems to have been, a long but successful process. If this book doesn’t inspire you to aim higher and better, then nothing will.Buy Eden at Amazon.co.uk

Fast Food Nation

It did not come as much of a surprise to find that so-called fast food is not the healthiest food in the world.

It did not come as much of a surprise to find that so-called fast food is not the healthiest food in the world. It was certainly no surprise to discover that the fast food chains are not the greatest employers in the world. It wasn’t unexpected to read that the big brands employ so many people that they wield great economic power.

What did, however, surprise and alarm me was the sheer influence Eric Schlosser claims the fast food companies have over the whole food chain and related economies. Is it really in the consumer’s best interests for the large food giants to have such a firm grip on the production of the raw materials that make up their final products? It is suggested that this power has knock-on effects on the health of (not only) consumers but on the shape of the entire economy.

Schlosser’s book makes disturbing reading. It’s unashamedly populist in its approach, suggesting that economic gain and corporate profit are more important than the well-being of the consumers. However, regardless of the author’s standpoint much of the evidence he produces is damming and that makes it a compelling read. If you’ve ever eaten fast food you should read it. It has certainly made me think harder about ordering anything “with fries to go”.