"It is a great and glorious tradition the world over - to vehemently state one thing and then do the exact opposite," begins the Amazon synopsis of Julie Burchill's latest book Not in My Name: A Compendium of Modern Hypocrisy. In the light of my announcement of my death and now resurrection within a week, I know exactly what she means. She gives a splendid interview to the Guardian today, here we go. She only got £2k for the book serialisation in the Mail. I blame Gordon Bown and his four planets in the secretive, furtive 12th (Piscean) house. His baleful influence turns everyone into a skinflint. Forget about David Miliband. Too prissy.
However it is Julie's co-writer, a male hack called Chas Newkey-Burden, who on this occasion interests me more. He appears to be the Carol Vorderman of the stocking-filler tome, an auto-churner of disposable literature, or listerature. To take 2007 as an example, he produced: Arsenal: Premiership Player Profiles; The Reduced History of Dogs; Paris Hilton: Life on the Edge; Great Email Disasters; and The All-New Official Arsenal Miscellany.
I marvel at such industry. And he must be quite savvy to be a pal of La Burch. Earlier this year he became the instant biographer of Amy Winehouse. Ahead of us are Help! I'm Turning into My Dad and The Dog Directory: Facts, Figures and Profiles of Over 100 Breeds.
His name - Chas Newkey-Burden - seems marvellously throw-away, too. "Here lies Chas Newkey-Burden" - no, it doesn't sound right, does it? It's not a name for a tombstone etch. Chas suggests impatience to me, an irritation with anything long-winded; so he adopted a nice fleeting sound for a first name. Nothing too formal, like. I think I may have to interview this will-o'-the-wisp of modern publishing. I am fascinated by industrial dervishes. I must examine his horoscope if not his oeuvre.
6 comments:
He's top-drawer gay media mafia too. Must have a well stuffed 8th House...
Mr Bewkey-Burden was in Private Eye of late... exposed as a self-reviewer on Amazon (he really loves his own work!) - a quick search of Amazon will show some remarkably persistent fans of his oeuvre (and a persistent tracker called The Cleaner), despite the deletion of the account mentioned in the magazine.
Thank you for all this information.
I can't imagine an Arsenal supporter being a cock-cocker - let's hope he's not litigious: certainly however a well stuffed 8th house (dominated by secretive-sexy Scorpio) would suggest a robust libido, cocker or cunter. I do hope the poppet is happy. Certainly he is prolific. I hope Julie will advise.
The Private Eye mention passed me by but am happy to accept as fact. Most prolific people are forever self-Googling and thinking up new ways of self promoting. Just ask Nicky Coleridge who despite a prodigious pay packet as a head honcho of Cunty Nast worries about public trifles, the sap.
Chas keeps interesting company too - here's a link to another blog where his "civil partner", Chris Morris is discussed: http://dizzythinks.net/2009/08/first-secretary-of-state-and-photos.html
It is worth noting that this Chris Morris is not the comedian, but rather the same man that successfully sued the State to lower the age of consent for gay sex to 16.
Thank you, I shall scrutinise. Alas, Chas and I fell out after I was compelled to give him a thrashing. He ran for the hills and hasn't been seen since.
This is strange. Chas is involved with something called "NLP" - my son tells me it is something about computers and artificial intelligence or something like that and Chris Morris has a blog where all the programmers seem a bit angry http://www.chrismorris.com/blog/2009/08/nick-kemp/
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