Here's my to-read pile... Thomas Pynchon has been temporarily removed as I was sizing it up to write my blog about it over on GU... Note Staying On by Paul Scott... next booker blog subject! Also I've read Hero Of the Underground, not sure why that's still there. Really excellent book too.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
My Alan Partridge moment
Reading this Guardian article about Alan Partridge style local radio DJs and author interviews this morning, I had a painfully bright flash of recognition. Normally, I've been nothing but impressed by the DJs interviewing me as I do the rounds when promoting my various book projects. They've been witty, knowledgeable and even kind when giving me the on-air opportunity to punt my wares. But just a week ago, I had my own moment that, no doubt unfairly - as the article suggests - but inevitably, put me in mind of the great chief of chat.
Things went smoothly enough in my interview (one of a number I did to promote Sod That!) until I was asked:
"Does your book give away a lot about your personal life?"
"Well, it might give you some information about my prejudices," I blustered, not sure what the two DJs were getting at.
"Well what does your girlfriend think of it?"
"I'm..."
"What does she think of the entry where it says that you should never be honest with your partner?"
At this point, there was an interjection of dead air. There was no such entry in my book. I would never suggest such a dreadful thing, either. Perish the thought. Slowly, the horrible truth dawned on me. My problem was that 'Sod That' has been afflicted by the release of a suspiciously similar work, which was quoted in the Daily Heil a week or so ago. It seems that the DJ team who were interviewing me had read this article, but not my book. Understandably enough, since the rival work is painfully like mine in intent, if not content, they had assumed that I had written it. In fact, that was the next question:
"Did you write this book?"
"I did, but not..."
"Well I was reading this thing in the Daily Mail..."
It was at this stage that I was forced to explain that they had been quoting from a different publication... But half way through this explanation I was cut off, in classic Alan Partridge style, my splutterings interrupted by a hit from the 80s... Leaving me alone in the ISDN studio in Oxford, echo-drums pounding in my ears, reflecting on what a giant nob-head I must have appeared to everyone listening.
Sadly, I've been unable to find the embarrassment on 'listen again'. Even more sadly, I didn't have the dignity of Hardeep Singh Koli and bail out of the interview, before it got too late. Hopefully, I at least gave a few people in the region a laugh. Even if it was at my expense...
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
The Flat Earth Society
A small extract from my book, The Joy Of Sects
Founded: 1892
Country of origin: UK
Gods and guiding voices: ‘God’
Membership: Last recorded in the US in 1990 at around 2,800
Texts: The Bible; Samuel Birley Rowbotham: Earth Not A Globe; Samuel Birley Rowbotham: Zetitic Astronomy
Basic beliefs: The Earth is flat. God says so.
Are you really sure that the Earth is a globe? Do you have real scientific knowledge to back that up? Or are you blindly believing in Scientific Truth and taking all that stuff about Foucault’s pendulum and measurements of curvature on trust?
Flat Earth theorists would say that if you are taking it on trust, you’ve been fooled. Nearly all ideas that support the Earth’s ‘globularity’ are, in fact, contrary to reason. People that say they know that the Earth is round because ships have sailed around it are just displaying ‘wretched logic’. After all, ships can sail around the Isle of Man and that doesn’t prove that it’s a globe. It’s ‘absurd’ to believe that there are people living in the so-called Antipodes. Wouldn’t they just fall off? And don’t say they’re hanging on because of gravity. What is gravity? Is it solid, liquid or gas? Have you ever seen it? Didn’t think so. Do you subscribe to the theory that the Earth is rushing through space at the awful rate of 63,000 miles an hour? If you do, why haven’t you been whirled off into space?
Flat Earth theory isn’t a recent phenomenon. It’s as old as, well, the Bible. That’s the source of phrases like ‘the four corners of the Earth’, and that’s why Christians suppressed Ancient Greek mathematical proofs for the roundness of the globe during the Dark Ages. However, from the ninth century onwards, the fiercest debates were not about the shape of the Earth, but its position in the universe. Galileo was imprisoned for saying the Earth went around the sun. Nobody really objected to the fact that he also thought it was round. It wasn’t until an English gentleman, Samuel Birley Rowbotham, published his book Earth Not A Globe in the mid-nineteenth century, full of logical arguments like those printed above, that the shape of the Earth once again turned into a burning issue.
A six-mile stretch of canal called the Bedford Level became the scene of fraught experimental showdowns between the ‘Flat Earthers’ and ‘globularists’. One convert to Rowbotham’s cause, John Hampden, offered £500 to anyone that could prove him wrong. When Alfred Wallace did indeed prove that the Earth was round in an experiment conducted on the canal in front of impartial judges, Hampden called him a ‘knave, liar, thief, swindler, imposter, rogue and felon’. He dedicated a large part of the rest of his life to writing poison-pen letters to Wallace and his wife.
In spite of Hampden’s lost bet, Flat Earth Theory continued to thrive. Christians all over the world began to form societies attracting thousands of members. The original British Flat Earth Society was founded in 1892 and kept on going strong until the early 1970s when its last active members, Samuel and Lillian Shelton, died. The pictures of the round Earth taken from space had proved to be something of a crushing blow – although the society did come up with the rather neat explanation that the entire space programme was a con, and the moon landings were scripted by none other than the mischievous Arthur C Clarke.
There are still plenty of Flat Earthers in the US. They claim (logically enough) that creationists and other Biblical literalists are hypocrites for insisting that the Bible disproves the theory of evolution, but failing to also maintain that the Earth is, ‘as God says’, flat.
Founded: 1892
Country of origin: UK
Gods and guiding voices: ‘God’
Membership: Last recorded in the US in 1990 at around 2,800
Texts: The Bible; Samuel Birley Rowbotham: Earth Not A Globe; Samuel Birley Rowbotham: Zetitic Astronomy
Basic beliefs: The Earth is flat. God says so.
Are you really sure that the Earth is a globe? Do you have real scientific knowledge to back that up? Or are you blindly believing in Scientific Truth and taking all that stuff about Foucault’s pendulum and measurements of curvature on trust?
Flat Earth theorists would say that if you are taking it on trust, you’ve been fooled. Nearly all ideas that support the Earth’s ‘globularity’ are, in fact, contrary to reason. People that say they know that the Earth is round because ships have sailed around it are just displaying ‘wretched logic’. After all, ships can sail around the Isle of Man and that doesn’t prove that it’s a globe. It’s ‘absurd’ to believe that there are people living in the so-called Antipodes. Wouldn’t they just fall off? And don’t say they’re hanging on because of gravity. What is gravity? Is it solid, liquid or gas? Have you ever seen it? Didn’t think so. Do you subscribe to the theory that the Earth is rushing through space at the awful rate of 63,000 miles an hour? If you do, why haven’t you been whirled off into space?
Flat Earth theory isn’t a recent phenomenon. It’s as old as, well, the Bible. That’s the source of phrases like ‘the four corners of the Earth’, and that’s why Christians suppressed Ancient Greek mathematical proofs for the roundness of the globe during the Dark Ages. However, from the ninth century onwards, the fiercest debates were not about the shape of the Earth, but its position in the universe. Galileo was imprisoned for saying the Earth went around the sun. Nobody really objected to the fact that he also thought it was round. It wasn’t until an English gentleman, Samuel Birley Rowbotham, published his book Earth Not A Globe in the mid-nineteenth century, full of logical arguments like those printed above, that the shape of the Earth once again turned into a burning issue.
A six-mile stretch of canal called the Bedford Level became the scene of fraught experimental showdowns between the ‘Flat Earthers’ and ‘globularists’. One convert to Rowbotham’s cause, John Hampden, offered £500 to anyone that could prove him wrong. When Alfred Wallace did indeed prove that the Earth was round in an experiment conducted on the canal in front of impartial judges, Hampden called him a ‘knave, liar, thief, swindler, imposter, rogue and felon’. He dedicated a large part of the rest of his life to writing poison-pen letters to Wallace and his wife.
In spite of Hampden’s lost bet, Flat Earth Theory continued to thrive. Christians all over the world began to form societies attracting thousands of members. The original British Flat Earth Society was founded in 1892 and kept on going strong until the early 1970s when its last active members, Samuel and Lillian Shelton, died. The pictures of the round Earth taken from space had proved to be something of a crushing blow – although the society did come up with the rather neat explanation that the entire space programme was a con, and the moon landings were scripted by none other than the mischievous Arthur C Clarke.
There are still plenty of Flat Earthers in the US. They claim (logically enough) that creationists and other Biblical literalists are hypocrites for insisting that the Bible disproves the theory of evolution, but failing to also maintain that the Earth is, ‘as God says’, flat.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Life's Too Short
Life is too short update this blog very often, clearly, for which I apologise. It's also much too brief to waste it doing a lot of other daft stuff... As is explained in full here.
Yes, it's a new underpopulated blog. I'd be very pleased if it received visitors and they started to fill it up for me... Just follow the simple on screen prompts.
Yes, it's a new underpopulated blog. I'd be very pleased if it received visitors and they started to fill it up for me... Just follow the simple on screen prompts.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Paris Bitter Hearts Pit review
"If Schadenfreude is what you usually get drunk on, prepare for a massive piss-up. Sam Jordison delivers, with Annus Horribilis (John Murray, £9.99) one of those indispensable coffee table books (you can also read it in other, more secluded places) that trigger some needed chuckles in these dreary autumn days..."
Nice! More here.
Have a scan of the rest of the Paris Bitter Hearts Pit too...
Nice! More here.
Have a scan of the rest of the Paris Bitter Hearts Pit too...
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
More reviews for Annus Horribilis
This time from splendind Malaysian blog: The Bookaholic, Bibliobibuli:
"This collection of :
AH also got a pleasant 'passing' mention in the Scotsman:
"To complete such a study, a particularly nasty dose of constipation is, for once, desirable. It can be claustrophobic in the WC, but there's always someone worse off, as toilet books can confirm. If you turn to today's date in Sam Jordison's Annus Horribilis (John Murray, £9.99), a calendar book of comic misfortune, then you will read about Moira Poor, an Auckland woman who in 1994 was trapped in a lift for 67 hours."
"This collection of :
Mistakes, mishaps, cock-ups ...is joyously funny, and deeply reassuring ... for it's really nice to know that there is always someone in the world capable of doing dafter things than you..."
AH also got a pleasant 'passing' mention in the Scotsman:
"To complete such a study, a particularly nasty dose of constipation is, for once, desirable. It can be claustrophobic in the WC, but there's always someone worse off, as toilet books can confirm. If you turn to today's date in Sam Jordison's Annus Horribilis (John Murray, £9.99), a calendar book of comic misfortune, then you will read about Moira Poor, an Auckland woman who in 1994 was trapped in a lift for 67 hours."
Monday, November 26, 2007
Another review for Annus Horribilis
Another nice one too.
From The Guardian Review:
Humour
The wit parade
Carrie O'Grady journeys through the circles of comedy hell to reach Wodehouse heaven
Saturday November 24, 2007
The Guardian
Ah, Christmas humour books. A funny old concept. As I write, there sits at my feet a box overflowing with titles that were so unfunny, so irritating, so desperate to make a quick buck that they don't deserve to be listed here. I'll deal with the books that at least have a chance of provoking a smile.
From The Guardian Review:
Humour
The wit parade
Carrie O'Grady journeys through the circles of comedy hell to reach Wodehouse heaven
Saturday November 24, 2007
The Guardian
Ah, Christmas humour books. A funny old concept. As I write, there sits at my feet a box overflowing with titles that were so unfunny, so irritating, so desperate to make a quick buck that they don't deserve to be listed here. I'll deal with the books that at least have a chance of provoking a smile.
"List books" make a strong showing this year; half a dozen attractive hardbacks manage to be amusing and informative. Faber's meaty Ten Bad Dates With De Niro (£12.99) is endlessly dip-into-able. Its offbeat, detailed top-10s are all the better for being written by some of our wackier stars: the Coen brothers, Steven Soderbergh and DBC Pierre all chip in.
As a Dodo (Summersdale, £9.99) brings together entries from a popular blog that publishes faux obituaries - so, for example, RIP Humanity's Sense of Superiority, which kicked the bucket this year when chimps were shown to use tools. Touch Me, I'm Sick (Portrait, £9.99) enumerates the 52 creepiest love songs, from Maurice Chevalier's icky "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" to Sophie B Hawkins's outright illegal interpretation of "Hansel and Gretel".
'If all that depresses you, enjoy a little schadenfreude with Annus Horribilis (John Murray, £9.99) - 365 tales of real-life "comic misfortune". One for fans of the Darwin awards, although save some sympathy for the intrepid Blackpool hamster that got nicked by the police for speeding down the pavement in a mini-racing-car (really!)."
'If all that depresses you, enjoy a little schadenfreude with Annus Horribilis (John Murray, £9.99) - 365 tales of real-life "comic misfortune". One for fans of the Darwin awards, although save some sympathy for the intrepid Blackpool hamster that got nicked by the police for speeding down the pavement in a mini-racing-car (really!)."
Friday, November 23, 2007
Annus Horribilis reviewed
Three really lovely reviews.
yay!
First the bookbag: click here
I can't defend the typos... Yikes! But I should say that the absence of February 29 is supposed to be a joke. Obviously not such a good one as no one has got it yet, but if you look in the index...
Second, Toasting Napolean: click here
Happily, I can return the compliment to Harry Bingham because I've been reading his Little Britain book and am finding it fascinating, stimulating and all the positive -ings you can think of.
Finally, here's a nice capsule from otherstories:
"This is a fun little book which is excellent for irritating people with (by reading out random entries, even when they don't want you to). A reminder that someone, somewhere, is having a worse day than you."
Just in case those persuade you to buy the book: click here
yay!
First the bookbag: click here
I can't defend the typos... Yikes! But I should say that the absence of February 29 is supposed to be a joke. Obviously not such a good one as no one has got it yet, but if you look in the index...
Second, Toasting Napolean: click here
Happily, I can return the compliment to Harry Bingham because I've been reading his Little Britain book and am finding it fascinating, stimulating and all the positive -ings you can think of.
Finally, here's a nice capsule from otherstories:
"This is a fun little book which is excellent for irritating people with (by reading out random entries, even when they don't want you to). A reminder that someone, somewhere, is having a worse day than you."
Just in case those persuade you to buy the book: click here
Monday, November 05, 2007
Annus Horribilis
My new book is in the shops now and available on amazon.co.uk
Here's the blurb:
"Mistakes, mishaps, cock-ups - they just aren't given the recognition they deserve. They make life interesting and human beings (some more than others) have a genuine flair for them. So why does history only record the world's dull and worthy achievements? "Annus Horribilis" sets the record straight by celebrating good old-fashioned failures. From the man whose spectacular escape from prison was spoiled when he was eaten by a crocodile to the husband who choked to death on his own wife, via several exploding whales, numerous celebrity meltdowns and countless predictions that proved to be wholly inaccurate, "Annus Horribilis" proves once and for all, that there's no success like failure."
Thursday, August 16, 2007
The Bible's Literary sins
A blog about the Bible that seems to have interested a few people in the Philippines.
If you're one of the religously inclined who seem to be visiting this blog at the moment, you might be interested in the The Joy Of Sects.... Could be some interesting - uh - parallels in there with that Eliseo Soriano chap.
Otherwise, I can generally be found hanging about here.
If you're one of the religously inclined who seem to be visiting this blog at the moment, you might be interested in the The Joy Of Sects.... Could be some interesting - uh - parallels in there with that Eliseo Soriano chap.
Otherwise, I can generally be found hanging about here.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Literature for the MySpace generation
Sam Jordison discovers how a new wave of publishers and writers are harnessing the power of MySpace and print on demand to bypass their bricks-and-mortar competitors to find new audiences
Wednesday February 7, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
More...
Wednesday February 7, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
More...
Bestseller versus groundbreaker
Bestseller versus groundbreaker
Those who flatter themselves that they are serious about literature rarely see anything they like at the top of the book charts. "Bestseller" clearly isn't a four-letter word but, in some circles at least, it is a derogatory term. There's a broad assumption that there's an inverse relationship between sales and quality - and that the charts are therefore topped with lowbrow, (...)Guardian books blogs
Who's Paul Auster Dad?
The enduring magic of Eric Newby
Catullus: The Supreme Poet of Spring
I can't bear Henry James...
Click here to see more.
Delderfield and other authors devoured by our parents have sunk into obscurity. But why, and who will disappear from our current favourites?
The enduring magic of Eric Newby
Returning to the great travel writer for the first time since he died, I am reminded of what we've lost, but consoled by how much life his books retain.
Catullus: The Supreme Poet of Spring
The end of winter has produced mountains of poetry, but two thousand years' worth has not bettered Catullus's lyrical evocation of this most poetic of seasons.
I can't bear Henry James...
... but at least he's not as preposterous as Thomas Hardy. Who are your pet hates?
Click here to see more.
Unlucky for some?
Unlucky for some?
SAM JORDISON
TODAY, millions of people around the world are staying in. They won't be going to the office. They might not be getting out of bed. And they certainly won't be going anywhere near a car or a plane. The reason - in case you haven't noticed - is that it's Friday the 13th.
Read more
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