Has the
Daily Mail run the extract from the funniest book of the year yet -
Seasonal Suicide Notes: My Life as It Is Lived by Roger Lewis? I can't be bothered to look, and I'm
awfully busy, so please be a duck and check it out. Last I heard, the paper bought the serial rights then got the wally-wobbles. Editor Paul Dacre was horrified by the book's venomous refrains (foreign to him as we know), spiked it, and ran something toothless by Janet Street-Porter. Very foolish. (Yes! The
Mail has run the extract, a commenter claims. Now I can't be bothered to rewrite this par. Mr Dacre has proven to be more pliant than legend allows. He also has good taste in
property. Longer[er] may he reign!)
While we await news (no longer), have a slurp of Lewis' glorious book from Christopher Hart's great review in the
Sunday Times. Lewis, a journalist and biographer of Peter Sellers and Anthony Burgess, reveals himself to be an authentic, wildly comic, splenetic misanthrope: a hater, among many other things and persons, of Clive James (let's start a club on this fraud), bad manners and Andrew Roberts who has the “grimace of a baboon with diarrhoea trying to hold it in." He's also the first writer to allude to the late film critic Alexander Walker's homosexuality: for some reason it's a complete no-go area in some quarters.
Thanks to Lewis' poor health “I’ve been coughing so much I sucked my trousers up my arse.” And when his father died in 2004 of “cancer of the bumhole… My sole inheritance is to comprise spare bumper packs of Coloplast Direct Wetwipes”. Oh yes, please.
Buy now.
Click pic for large version. My thanks to Duncan Fallowell for this photo of the Roger Lewis book launch at Zippo's Circus on Hampstead Heath last week - Roger's son Tristan is a clown and juggler with Zippo's. Duncan Fallowell is in the white trousers and Beryl Bainbridge is offering him money - he can't remember what for. Paul Bailey is in the background (my apologies for trying to kiss you once, Paul ...)
30 comments:
Tristan Lewis looks very sexy
That wouldn't be the man with the white hair would it? No, it can't be.
Nah! On your link Tristan is a Clown. To a Mail article funnily enough.
I'm soooo generous to the Mail ain't I. That's despite Ephraim Hardcastle pinching my stories without credit. And fancy Ephraim getting all homophobic on nancy boy politico Iain Dale - anyone would think their showbiz dept is peopled just by cunting heteros.
Looks like they're doing a drug deal.
I like Fallowell's review of this book on Amazon UK where there's also a 'sponsored link': 'You Can Avboid Suicide - find hope and life instead of despair and death'. Matt Lucas's boyfriend should've read this book.
Yes, it's in the Mail today. You obviously frightened them into it, Ms Arcati.
So sad about Matt Lucas' ex-partner. Another reason to ditch Facebook.
All true. Lewis is a GOD. And if you look carefully, you can see my pink shoes in that picture (the rest of me was there, too).
Clair, darling, I had no idea. Do you know the legendary Duncs? What's he really really like? Tell me everything (in public confidence).
I love Beryl Bainbridge and have never forgiven the Evening Standard (RIP) for dropping her page. She was just wonderful, witty. And of course she was a dear friend of your lover Robert Tewdwr Moss.
Robert was not my lover. But I did try to kiss Paul. Once.
Coloplast Direct Wetwipes - excellent for wanking
Darling Clair, well what's Roger like and tell me about your friendship.
Roger is one of our regular reviewers, and though I don't know him well, we've bonded over conversations about Peter Sellers, Amy Turtle and streets with rude names. I love people with that very British quality of extreme wit and extreme intelligence, don't you, Madame?
Any cock pics of Tristan?
Beryl's trying to buy sex - I never thought she'd stoop to that.
Lewis has SOUL
I don't have a cock pic of Tristan - perhaps Zippo's PR could get in touch and we'll arrange a shoot. Either that or there's Dame PhotoShop ...
Dear Clair - Amy Turtle, she was fascinating. I believe whatever she said was as much a surprise to the rest of the cast as to the actress herself and director, and Crossroads was all the better for that.
Do you recall the arm wrestling episode where the loser's hand was imnpaled on a broken drinking glass - Amy wasn't in that scene, can you imagine that happening in a soap today?
I love witty eccentrics, but only if they don't realise they are eccentric. xx
Ah, you mean Russian spy Amelia Turtlovski...
Oh, so you know about Amelia Turtlovski. She recruited the chef wee Shughie MacPheelby at Cambridge. Not many people know that.
Who's this Clair who's suddenly popped up?
She is Mother from The Avengers
Or perhaps Clair is http://theurbanwoo.blogspot.com/
Dear Madame A, I was reading one of Roger Lewis' pieces in the spectator on line about Betty Box. I am not allowed to read his book Seasonal Suicide Notes as in true Molly fashion mother has already told me thats my Christmas present. He asks if anyone has ever written a Biography of actor, James Robertson Justice. Surely he should do that and my mother Molly Parkin could enlighten him with the juicy details of their liason in the 50's when they met in The Swallow club off picadilly when she was a teacher, and he was her svengali.
Just a suggestion.
Sophie Parkin
ps. May we have your suggestions for best books for Christmas presents?
Sophie, poppet, what a delight to hear from you.
I'm sure Roger L will be enraptured by your suggestion: I'd do it myself but I have a blog to run, you know how it is!
Your Krimble books idea also is worthy of theft - I shall post your comment today or tomorrow, I'll give Ivanka Trump a bit more time to stew. Madame Arcati will then shower the world with her literary blessings - as well her guide to books not worth shitting on. Quite a list.
Btw, whatever happened to your Croatia piece? I've been on tenterhooks. Normally a pleasurable experience, but I'm not getting any younger.
Love to husband.
xx
Roger Lewis tells me - "I have a piece on the glorious James R-J in my forthcoming GROWING UP WITH COMEDIANS book."
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