Write Off

I hope you're ashamed, man

You know the author, Dan Brown? He of such laughable tomes as The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons? Well his writing is such vile and ridiculous piffle, so cliched, predictable and - pardon the technical jargon - shite that he makes me want to kick holes in the fabric of the universe in the hope that he'll be sucked through one into a parallel universe where bad authors get terrorised by the very cobblers that they've unleashed upon the world. 
Anyway, why am I mentioning this now? Because an article in one of today's newsrags, about the glorious CERN, spoke of Brown's description of the place in one of his assaults on literature. He talks of its "voluminous lobby...its bluish glass roof shimmering in the sun" and calls it a "glass cathedral" to science.
Well I call that a crock. I was in CERN back in May and it sure as shit didn't look like that to me. In fact it looked like an abandoned 70s comprehensive school taken over by wombles. As fabulous as the place is - and, by fuck, it is as fabulous as fabulous gets - Brown's description is several light years away from reality.
This just confirmed in my mind that Brown is to literature what Peter Sutcliffe is to human rights. I recall trying The Da Vinci Code when it first spewed onto the nation's shelves and got no more than 20 pages in before my brain fizzled at the appalling rape of the English language that this tome constituted. 
Perhaps, when CERN has mastered the quantum universe, we can use the knowledge to our own ends to avenge Brown's evil. Or perhaps we can just shove him into the LHC, making him and his work travel in opposite directions at almost the speed of light, colliding them until they disappear up each other's arses. Now how's that for the wonderful miracle of science?

Face Ache

He's Dostoyevsky. He's allowed.

Now, those of you who know me know that I'm a book obsessive. Every room in my lair is lined with books (including my shed). So it goes without saying that I've seen the mug shots of many an author. You know the shit - turn to the inside back cover, gawp at whoever had the time/ money/ obsession to belt out 350 pages of whatever.
So WTF is going on with those mugshots? Christ, have you ever seen such vile, egotistical pretentious toss? It's not the pics that are the problem but the gurners who inhabit them. Without a doubt you'll find them peering earnestly at the lens as if their tome is of such import that it reduces Dostoyevsky's efforts to the Chick Lit bargain bin. 
Jesus, as a journalist I've tossed about the idea of writing a book a thousand times. And you know what? If I had found the time/ energy/ obsessiveness to write one I as sure as fuck would not come over all Bon(i)o about it. I suspect that my book jacket pic would feature me unhinging my jaw with a stupefied grin while champagne dripped from my fringe. I'd look like I'd been happily flogged with my own winning lottery ticket. What I would not look like is some snotty prick forced to gaze upon the illiterate proles that surround them. No. I save that particular look for when I'm watching Jeremy Kyle.


Snow Go 

This dwarf ain't called Happy

As I type this my lovely offspring is glued to Snow White. It's not long into the film when the eponymous heroine flounces into the seven dwarves' digs for a rummage and a snooze (dragging half the fauna of the bloody forest behind her, I hasten to add). 
Now, in the light of the recent UK news that homeowner Vincent Cooke was relieved of a murder charge for stabbing to death the burglar who was raiding his house, who could blame the dwarves for setting about Snow White with their hatchets, thereby saving us another hour of Disney schmaltz? 
Just sayin'.