Tales from the Bedroom Floor

London: Victor Gollancz, 1994 Why is this book on the bedroom floor?  - I spotted in in a charity shop, and paid an extortionate price for it because I've wanted to read it for years. So given the slimness of the volume and its relative value, I waited for a couple of years before pulling it out and giving it floor space. About the Author - Don Watson wrote extensively for the NME during the 1980s, becoming a section editor and departing in 1989. After continuing to write across various publications, he now works in marketing for the British Council, the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations. No, me neither. Plot - ex-music editor goes to World Cup, meets people, describes. Review - First of all, I should declare a prior interest. Some thirteen years ago, at the start of my own professional writing career, I decided my first book-length project would be to go to a World Cup finals and experience fan culture, trying to find the single answer...

London: Flamingo, 1993 Why is this book on the bedroom floor? - I first saw the film adaptation of this novel in about 2003, a couple of years after its release. I hadn’t heard of it at the time, which I’ve since discovered is because it was released slap-bang in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, and given its robust criticisms of the US Army and the dark underlying themes therein, it sank more or less without trace. As far as I know it’s not yet a cult hit, which is a shame because it’s a solid and fairly faithful representation of the novel. Nevertheless, it was the film which pointed me in the direction of the book, but I’m also a bit of a Cold War enthusiast, so because the film is set ostensibly in the months just before the Berlin Wall fell, I thought I’d get hold of a copy and then ignore it for about a year, as is my custom. About the Author - Robert O’Connor is a man of mystery. Although Buffalo Soldiers was seen as a promising debut fashione...

We’re all guilty of hoarding, of keeping things for longer than we should. It’s human nature to think we can find a use for the odd little knick-knack which came with the vacuum cleaner we chucked out a decade and a half ago. Why wouldn’t we? It’s got a nice shape which looks like it might fit under the thing, if the thing ever jams, and if we can work out which thing we’re referring to. It’s pure Darwinism – just as finches shaped their beaks adapted for their specific habitat, so the third drawer down from the top adapts to that household’s misplaced optimism. I myself am from a family of hoarders. In an ideal world the Stanleys would extend property indefinitely, upsize forever, if it meant keeping every series of Red Dwarf , including Smeg Ups and Smeg Outs , on VHS cassette. Though as a unit we’re on the right side of being crushed by four years’ worth of local newspapers (just about), those ingrained habits are tough to break. Even now, years after flying the coop, my ...