Brian Bollen's Blog

The Churchill Girls: The Story of Winston's Daughters

Title:                The Churchill Girls

Author:            Rachel Trethewey

Pages:              320 including index

Publisher:        The History Press

Price:               £20

ISBN:               978-0-7509-9324-1

To be perfectly honest, I never even knew until relatively recently that Winston Churchill, arguably the greatest leader that the UK has ever had, even had daughters, let alone four. If prompted, I might recall a couple of scenes in The Crown, but they scarcely registered.

I remember first becoming aware of the Churchill name when the great man died, on January 24 1965, when I was still aged just seven. The media made the most enormous fuss, for a name that to me at that time meant absolutely nothing. He was just an old man whose death cleared the television schedules.

And what limited schedules those already were. In those days, most ordinary family television sets in the UK still offered only two channels: BBC1 and ITV. BBC2 had launched in April 1964, yes, but became widely viewed only in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

As I recall, the television schedules and newspapers were stuffed with stories of Churchill’s passing and images of his state funeral procession, pushing regular programmes out of their slots.

To me, they seemed endless, and are forever etched in my memory in fuzzy black and white. One of the pictures in this book, of the family standing on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral, brings that occasion firmly into the present, albeit in much sharper focus.

This book, though physically all in black and white, brings colour, often vivid colour, into the Churchill saga. As the blurb inside the front cover reads: In any other family, Diana, Sarah, Marigold and Mary would have shone. But they were not in any other family. They were Churchills and neither they nor anyone else could forget it.

As the author says in her introduction: Thousands of books have been written about Winston Churchill, but this is the first focussing on his daughters. And what a read it is, giving cinematic glimpses into a privileged but not always idyllic world, even if youngest daughter Mary likened her childhood at Chartwell, the family home, to growing up in the Garden of Eden.

Post-divorce Diana, turning to her father for support, was invited to join him at ageing film star Maxine Elliott’s luxurious villa in the south of France. There, we are told, if your feet ached after dancing all night in Cannes, a bath would be filled from bottles of iced champagne to refresh them. And when the real moon was not shining, the hostess switched on a large electric one.

Future heavy drinker and inmate of Holloway Prison, Sarah, when not high-kicking across the stage in a very short skirt and frilly knickers (sic), played a wounded pheasant in a ballet satirising an Edwardian shooting party. We are told that when Sarah was sober, she was charming, funny and talented. When in drink, it was another matter. She knew the inside of the Priory clinic as a patient, and during her 10-day sojourn in Holloway she made friends with the prostitutes, confidence tricksters and thieves she came across. When lesbian prisoners propositioned her, she took it in her stride.

Marigold died on August 23 1921, aged two years and nine months, after a sore throat developed into septicaemia. According to Winston, at the time of her death, her mother, Clementine, let out a series of wild shrieks like a wounded animal.

Mary, the youngest daughter, displaying an early entrepreneurial spirit, set up a business called The Happy Zoo, selling budgerigars to guests at Chartwell, which included the likes of Lawrence of Arabia, turning up on his motorcycle.

Another visitor was Brendan Bracken, after whom is named Bracken House, the once and future home of the Financial Times, at 1, Friday Street, London, where I began learning my trade as a journalist in October 1984. The book contains, incidentally, the one and only suggestion I have ever read that Brendan Bracken was rumoured to be Churchill’s son.

I could go on, and on, but I highly recommend that you seek out this book and read it for yourself. I think you’ll enjoy it very much.

Brian Bollen, March 26 2021

David Kynaston's excellent history of the Bank of England

Title: Till Time's Last Sand

Author: David Kynaston

Pages: 879 (including notes and index)

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Price: £35.00/$75.00

ISBN HB: 978-1-4088-6856-0

ISBN TPB: 978-1-4088-6857-7

ISBN ePub: 978-1-4088-6858-4

This is quite simply a perfect addition to the collection of anyone who has an interest in the financial past. Sub-titled A HISTORY OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND 1694-2013 it does exactly what it says on the tin.

The blurb on the inside front cover sleeve describes the book as the first authoritative and accessible single volume history of the Bank of England and I look forward hugely to reading it fully at leisure and to consulting it in years to come.

Till Time's Last Sand opens with the Bank's founding in 1694 (by a Scotsman named William Paterson, which I knew, and with a £300 capital subscription from philosopher John Locke, which I didn't know). It closes in 2013 with Mark Carney succeeding Mervyn King as governor.

Another thing I didn't know was that William Paterson was gone from the bank before the end of February 1695 for conduct unbecoming and breach of trust.

I passed my banking exams in the spring of 1983 and became an Associate of the Institute of Bankers in July that year, and was elected to fellowship of the ifs School of Finance in March 2007 so have almost a full lifetime's exposure to banking history, which enthused me from day one of my history of banking studies.

What fun to wander down memory lane with tally sticks (sticks of notched wood that were in effect IOUs, the blockchain of their day) and Navy paper (bills based on the security of the English Navy, and it WAS the English navy as the Act of Union that created the UK did not pass through parliament till 1707).

Page 13 has a rivetting account of how the then deputy governor Michael Godfrey died suddenly when watching the siege of Namur in 1695 along with William Paterson. 'A cannon ball from the ramparts laid Godfrey's head at William's feet. Bank stock immediately fell 2 percent, once the news reached London; and Scawen, who apparently had been standing only two yards away, was elected as the new deputy governor'. They just do not make them like that any more.

Page 477 features - nay, stars - a list of opinions attributed to central bankers, drawn up in 1962. A central needs a sense of smell (analysis is only theorising but may be encouraged when it confuses critics). No civil servant understands markets. Politicians do not sufficiently explain the facts of life to the electorate. Central bankers should always do what they say and never say what they do. Taxes are too high. Sounds pretty much bang on as a summary of the world 55 years later.

The final sentences of Till Time's Last Sand are straight from the mouth, or pen, of Mervyn King, musing on the heroes and villains highlighted on the website of his favourite football team, Aston Villa. 'For all our sakes it is important that central banks are seen neither as heroes nor villains. They should be modest technicians, striving to improve the way they use the tools of their trade, and always eager to learn. Openness of mind and fleetness of foot will be the best way to avoid extinction.'

A fitting end to a marvellous book. I take my hat off to David Kynaston, author of an earlier history of another institution, the Financial Times, published in its centenary year in 1988. It still sits proudly on my bookshelf nearly 30 years after it was presented to me as an FT staffer at that time.

Not quite a Christmas carol...

What's that? said my wife when she realised a parcel was being delivered to our door this morning.

Someone has sent me a book to review, I answered.

Ooooohhhh, she said, with a thrill of anticipation, thinking it might be a new Jack Reacher or John Grisham.

Finance-led capitalism, shadow banking, re-regulation and the future of global markets, by Robert Guttman.

To say that she audibly deflated is to do deflation an injustice.

Paris Has A Distinct Smell: Book Review

Title: The Richebourg Affair

Author: R. M. Cartmel

Pages: 307 (including appendices)

Publisher: Crime Scene Books

Price: £7.99

ISBN 978-0-9929486-0-3

It seems to me that there is at least one good technical non-literary reason for the continuing popularity of detective novels, with writers and readers alike. It dawned on me while I was writing my own (unpublished) efforts in the genre (Two Dead Got Up To Fight and Hot Metal, Cold Heart) that the format can be applied to just about any human situation you might imagine.

Victorian London? Sherlock Holmes. Deep middle England? Inspector Morse, Lewis, Midsomer Murders. Middle Ages? The Name of the Rose. Ancient Rome? Falco. Modern London? Sherlock Holmes again. The marketing blurb will usually include a sentence like: xxx takes place against the backdrop of yyy (insert the era and society of choice).

In this context, The Richebourg Affair by R. M. Cartmel (here's a tip for aspiring wanna-be-published writers, publishers seem to be suckers for writers with at least two given names who use only their initials) takes place against the backdrop of the Burgundy wine region. Except -and I have to confess that I am basing this review on a random sampling of pages rather than reading it from cover to cover - the backdrop takes over to a curious extent. It feels that the author wants to sing Burgundy's praises all day long and has worked out that a detective story gives him that excuse.

We learn about the Phylloxera aphid which killed French vines in the 1870s. On the same page we have sensual descriptions of several foodstuffs, from coq-au-vin [sic] to a baton of bread and apple tart. These sound as if the writer knows his stuff.

By contrast, the scenes in which police appear and detective work takes place seem to be based on years of watching formulaic detective series on TV (I did the same myself to a certain extent, I must confess, but I was also able to deploy a whole host of incidents and descriptions based on first-hand experience of Milton Keynes' Finest going about their day-to-day work making mental notes from the moment they arrived hammering at my front door).

And I wonder if R. M. Cartmel has actually ever been in Paris. Consider this statement: Contrary to the marketing patter, Paris didn't smell like perfume; it smelled like any big city grubby with petrol fumes.

That is simply not true. Paris has a distinctive smell all of its own. Paris smells of Gauloises and Gitanes. Paris smells of garlic. Paris smells of taxi drivers stinking of cheap red wine as they hurtle into the Arc de Triomphe chariot race. Paris smells of unshaven, unwashed armpits. That's what Paris smells of.

To end on a positive note, there are possibly better Burgundy travelogues and there are possibly better told detective stories, but this is the first book I've come across that combines the two. To pinch a line from Douglas Adams: The Richebourg Affair - Mostly Harmless.

So long and thanks for all the garlic.

It's A Grand Old Team To Quiz About

Title: Never Mind The Hoops: The Ultimate Celtic Quiz Book

Author: David Potter

Publisher: The History Press

Pages: 128

Price: £6.99

ISBN:978-0-7509-5223-1

Although I've been an avowed supporter of Airdrieonians FC since the age of 12, and write for the Airdrie match day programme, I was born and brought up in the section of the Scottish community that gravitates towards Glasgow Celtic rather than their traditional great city rivals. So when I saw a press release from The History Press I was intrigued at the thought of a quiz book dedicated to the club, its players and its culture.

A quick flick through its pages hammered home the lesson that I know even less about Celtic than I thought I did. Who, for instance, said “The Celtic jersey does not shrink to fit inferior players?” I don't know. Or: “My life without Celtic would have been a very empty one indeed.” Don't know, though I'd hazard a guess at Jock Stein. Or: “Face the ball, Celts.” No idea. Or: “John, you're immortal now.” I do know that one without looking at the answers in the back of the book. It was Bill Shankly, legendary manager of Liverpool, on Celtic's victory over Inter Milan in the 1967 European Cup Final in Lisbon.

That score of one out of four is artificially boosted by ignoring the several other questions that flummoxed me. If you're thinking of running a Celtic-themed quiz night, this is an excellent place to start. If you're not, but have a relative who's a Celtic fan, this is an ideal present. I'll set the ball rolling by sending my copy to my Dad...

Related articles

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Glasgow Rangers: The Delights Of Liquidation

Airdrieonians FC: Airdrie target Garry Hay wants new club

George Raynor: The Greatest Coach England Never Had?

Title: George Raynor, The Greatest Coach England Never Had

Author: Ashley Hyne

Publisher: The History Press

Pages: 221

Price: £9.99

Format: Paperback

Published: 2014-06-02

ISBN: 9780750959674

See more at: http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/index.php/george-raynor.html#sthash.b7gmTIsV.dpuf

 

I enjoyed this book, despite its oddities. Or perhaps because of them. The title, for instance, would lead you to expect one thing. The content delivers quite another, in my honest opinion.

When I finished it (and I read it from page to page as I promised the publishers I would, rather than do a review based on skimming or sampling random pages) I hadn't formed the opinion that failure to appoint George Raynor as head coach of the England national football side had been some form of football mortal sin committed by the Football Association.

Control Your Retirement Destiny

I'm extremely wary of any writing about pensions and other forms of retirement planning. Whatever form it takes, it is usually written by snakeoil salesmen trying to scare the living daylights out of you to save vast amounts of money for light years in the future that you need to pay utility bills today, or by politicians promising you jam tomorrow so long as you sup poison today.

My cynicism is exacerbated by my growing puzzlement as to why people want to retire at an arbitrary age that looks ludicrously young the nearer I get to it (I reached the age of 56 in February 2013 and often still feel about 12). The default retirement age of 65 was set in western Europe by the German chancellor Bismarck in the late 19th century (IIRC) at a time when virtually no-one lived beyond that. It was clearly a ploy by a politician to make it seem the great unwashed were receiving some fantastic largesse from a beneficent state. Well, has that ploy backfired or what?

Another turn-off is the sweeping incomprehensibility of most attempts by financial 'advisers' to advise clients to hand over large sums of money to them for a return at some future date (incurring all kinds of risk and credit exposure that they almost certainly won't recognise they are incurring).

So I was pleasantly surprised when I began reading Control Your Retirement Destiny (Smart Financial Decisions For The 50+ Crowd) by Dana Anspach. It's a little folksier than we British like, but it's readable, written in simple English, even fun. I like the comparison between unknown individual longevity and the certainty of a car journey in a vehicle that achieves 20 miles to the gallon.

If you're looking for something to explain long-term savings in a way you stand a hope in hell's chance of understanding, I can recommend this as a starting point. But rather than worry about being impoverished at 65, I'd suggest adopting the mindset that it's better to work as long as you are physically and mentally capable. When did you last see the inhabitants of an ant colony kicking back in comfy slippers? 

The Future of Private Equity: Beyond the Mega Buyout

Book Title: The Future of Private Equity: Beyond the Mega Buyout

Author: Mark Bishop

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

PP: 245

The first thing I would say about the recently published book The Future of Private Equity: Beyond the Mega Buyout, by Mark Bishop, is that it is no Barbarians at the Gate. The second thing I would say is that that is a good thing. I found the account of the KKR/RJR Nabisco buyout, often hailed as some kind of classic, absolutely unreadable.

The US style of writing, like the US style of sporting commentary, often leaves me stone cold. The US style is to throw endless statistics and facts and minutiae at the reader/listener, at a constant, unyielding fever pitch which quickly becomes tiresome.

Mark Bishop’s style is much more British, less overstated and, as befits a former journalist, he is informative, communicative and easy to read. I would, though, venture to suggest that some of his sentences can be a bit long. That, though, calls to mind pots calling kettles black.

I enjoyed the introduction and scene-setting first chapter, but it’s perhaps a pity that he didn’t put more of himself into the body of the book. That body is in essence a series of interviews with well known industry figures, each introduced by a short corporate biography.

The figures in question start with Jon (Not Enough Companies Are Dying) Moulton, of Better Capital, and range through Wol (ISIS) Kolade and Garry (Endless) Wilson, to Hisham El-Khazindar of Citadel Capital (of whom and of which I have never previously heard, despite having written about the venture capital, private and M&A industries since the mid-1980s).

The book is partly a beginner’s guide to private equity and its position in the modern post-Capitalism world, but for this reader the real added value comes from the genuine insight into the thinking of the various industry participants, given, literally, with all the ums, ers and ahs deleted in transcription, in their own words.

I can’t give an informed opinion on value for money, though, as my review is, again literally, priceless. I’ve searched high and low and can’t find a price. Perhaps that’s a clever metaphor for today’s private equity business…

PRICE UPDATE: I've just been advised that the book is a mere snip at £26.00. A possible Christmas stocking filler for the private equiteer in your life?

The Perfect Man: By David Waller (Book Review)

Title: The Perfect Man

Author: David Waller

Date Available: Now

Publisher: Victorian Secrets Ltd

ISBN: 978-1-906469-25-2

Type of cover: Paperback

Pages: 283

It can be awkward reviewing a book by a writer one knows. There is, for instance, a feeling of immediate obligation to read the book rather than skim through it (my personal record for writing a review, from opening the cover to saving the finished product is around 10 minutes) so it’s more time-consuming.

David Waller is a former colleague from my days at the Financial Times Group. I hope to think that if he had written a stinker, I’d have had the guts to say so. But The Perfect Man is nothing if not intriguing. It tells a story I had never heard of, that of Prussian-born Eugen Sandow, strongman, music hall sensation and the epitome of male physical perfection (I postponed reading the book several times because I found the near-nude photographic proof of that last statement off-putting).

Even the introduction to the book is unusually readable, opening the story by dragging readers into the middle of an anecdote about the creator of Sherlock Holmes, famous Scotsman Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Waller quickly sketches out the scene, painting Sandow as a modern gladiator whom society ladies paid good money to access in private after public displays, and as a prefiguring of the kind of brand-building that (Sir) David Beckham and Claudia Schiffer would become well known for.

On this point, I particularly enjoyed the idea that the man who ran personal physical education courses, and developed a chain of licensed fitness training schools, included cigars amongst the products on sale (I smoke cigars regularly myself, and recently completed the Jungfrau Marathon in six hours thirty-one minutes and sixteen seconds at the age of 55, without stopping once, or hitting The Wall).

The introduction also includes a tantalising reference to a Waller family scandal, which of course sent me scurrying straight to the epilogue for details of adulterous love, child abandoment, the Prostitutes’ Padre, loose moral characters, pyjama parties, a clerical defrocking, Skegness Amusement Park, two lions, and the death of the aforementioned padre. Makes you want to read it for yourself, doesn’t it?

Brand Failures: The Truth, By Matt Haig

Just finished reading Matt Haig's 'brand Failures: The Truth about the 100 biggest branding mistakes of all time'. Anyone with even a passing interest in business will find it enjoyable, and easy to dip in and out of because of its format. Gerald Ratner, New Coke, Toxic Shock, Exxon Valdez, McLibel, Ben-Gay Aspirin and Smith and Wesson Mountain Bikes, they're all there!

First published in 2003 but still pertinent and readable.

Sarkozy Right Wing?

Sarkozy was right-wing? On what planet??

Hedge Funds Top Over 17 Years

Hedge funds significantly outperformed traditional asset classes such as equities, bonds and commodities over the last 17 years according to a new study by The Centre for Hedge Fund Research at Imperial College in London. The research, commissioned by KPMG, the international audit, tax and advisory firm, and the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA), the global hedge fund association, is described as the most comprehensive of its kind to date.

The report, entitled “The Value of the Hedge Fund Industry to Investors, Markets and the Broader Economy”, found that, per annum, hedge funds returned 9.07% on average after fees between 1994 and 2011, compared to 7.18% for global stocks, 6.25% for global bonds and 7.27% for global commodities. Moreover, hedge funds achieved these returns with considerably lower risk volatility as measured by Value-at-Risk (VaR) than either stocks or commodities. Their volatility and Value-at-Risk were similar to bonds, an asset class considered the least risky and volatile. The research also demonstrated that hedge funds were significant generators of alpha, creating an average of 4.19% per year from 1994-2011.

“This research is powerful proof of hedge funds’ ability to generate stronger returns than equities, bonds and commodities and with lower volatility and risk than equities,” said Andrew Baker, AIMA’s CEO.

Portfolios including hedge funds also outperformed those comprising only equities and bonds, The Centre for Hedge Fund Research concluded. The study showed that such a portfolio outperformed a conventional portfolio that invested 60% in stocks and 40% in bonds. The returns of the portfolio with an allocation to hedge funds also yielded a significantly higher Sharpe ratio (which characterises how well the return of an asset compensates the investor for the risk taken) with lower tail risk (the risk of extreme fluctuation: see http://www.brianbollen.com/bbb_brian_bollens_blog/2012/04/killie-break-celtic-but-will-euro-break-too.html).

The Dark Dark Comedy Of Vernon God Little

Currently enjoying the dark dark comedy of Vernon God Little, by DBC Pierre. I normally avoid Booker prize winners like the plague, for their all-round unreadability, and this one has been sitting on the shelves here for two or three years. I think Margaret might have bought me it as a Christmas present.

I sampled it very suspiciously at first, but can hardly put it down. It's a book that treats the reader like an intelligent grown-up who is prepared to put in a bit of effort. It begins to reward that effort very quickly.

I feel as if I'm watching a film. The writer has a good ear for dialogue, and can conjure up scenes, sounds and smells acutely.

It's not often I recommend a book: this is one on my lifetime short list. It's like a Christian Portnoy's Complaint crossed with Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird (guesses on an e-postcard which one of those three I haven't actually read...)

Lost Symbol: Last Langdon?

I did wonder why, after all the hype leading up to its publication in 2009, little more was heard of Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol, follow-up to The Da Vinci Code. Having finished reading it earlier today, I can quite understand why.

I read the first 300 pages on the journey back to the UK from Switzerland on Saturday (January 28). I felt it was the usual poorly written rot, but a page-turner nonetheless, and great fun.

But I came to realise over the next few days that it has several problems, and I think that the world might have heard the last from Professor Robert Langdon. One could almost see Tom Hanks faxing in his performance for the film that was probably on the cards before publication but surely won't be now.

Looking For Sex And Violence? Read Le Morte D'Arthur

Have you ever read Le Morte D'Arthur? Sir Thomas Mallory makes Quentin Tarantino look like the Tooth Fairy.

Fighting Financial Fires: An IMF Insider Account

When I trailed this book three days ago I promised to let you know what I thought of it, once I had had a chance to look at it for myself (the publishers, palgrave macmillan, small letters throughout, describe it as 'riveting' you will recall).

Well, it thudded on to my door mat yesterday morning and such is my devotion to duty that here I am posting my initial reactions on a Sunday afternoon (just before the long dark tea-time of the soul).

This is a page-skipper rather than a page-turner, I'm afraid, 191 pages from Prologue to Epilogue. But, it is a veritable treasure trove of background information on everything that has gone wrong in the international financial world over the past 40-odd years, and what the authorities have done, or tried to do, to try and put things right.

For someone old enough to remember the collapse of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange regime in 1971 and the first oil shock in 1973, it's like walking down Memory Lane. For younger readers, it could prove to be a useful history lesson.

One mild personal criticism is that while it gives a quick thumbnail sketch of the Brady Plan, which helped the world recover from the Latin American and other debt crises of the 1980s, it makes not even a fleeting reference to my own small but crucial role in the change of thinking that led to the creation of the Brady Bond.

The title of the book, and some of the individual chapter titles (Indonesia With Nukes and The Korean Christmas Crisis) do their job effectively, persuading readers who might otherwise pass on by to take a look inside. But in my proofs-style copy the content is too dense, physically, as well as in terms of content for all but the most determined reader.

Everyone with an interest in international finance should have a copy on their bookshelf, even if it is only ever taken down, dusted and consulted in times of uncertainty.

A worthy contribution to the industry from Dr Onno de Beaufort Wijnholds, a former executive director of the International Monetary Fund, Fighting Financial Fires is available in hardback from September 2011 at a price of £26.00. Its ISBN is ISBN-978-0-230-29267-3.

S.O.S.

If you haven't already read S.O.S. by Joseph Connolly, treat yourself soon.

S.O.S. serves as a welcome introduction to the fiction of Joseph Connolly, also a noted biographer. As the New York-bound SS Transylvania proceeds serenely across the Atlantic, those on board find themselves thrown from pillar to post, battered physically and emotionally. Only the most pig-headed disembark unscathed.

Literate and witty, displaying a common touch while eschewing gratuitous vulgarity, this La Ronde for the 21st century beguiles and surprises, often both at once. A sense of pervading doom grows as the unlikely but inter-related couplings accumulate and multiply.

The myriad surprises are revealed deftly. That protagonist David has a problem saying no in the pub is clear from the first line; that his wife Nicole has a problem in the casino is not. David's discovery that Nicole's new close friend Patty is his own older, even closer friend Trish is enhanced by the brevity with which it is described.

One Day: Beautiful But Painful

One Day, by David Nicholls, is a beautiful but painful read. So painful, I'm not sure that I can actually carry on reading it (I finished chapter eight yesterday, in which one of the central characters made an ass of himself by being very drunk in charge of a live television show).

Nicholls first came to wide public attention with Starter For Ten, a comic novel with University Challenge at the heart of it. That was amusing, but with One Day he has stepped up a level. It's not often that I take my hat off to another writer, but all credit to David Nicholls. He is maturing into an excellent example of the species.

The Autobiography Of Frank Richards

Published in 1952 by Charles Skilton Ltd, this is a fascinating self-portrait by the man best known for his creation of Greyfriars School and in particular Billy Bunter. He led a fascinating life, starting his long writing career when he was just 17, in 1890. His first sale of a story netted him five guineas (that's five pounds 25 pence for younger readers, a fantastic sum of money in those days).

When he accepted an invitation to visit the publisher, the publisher was appalled at his youth, and promptly cut his rate! He toured Europe from side to side, playing the tables at Monte Carlo and writing thousands of words a day as he went, constantly drawing on events and people around him for ideas. When he's writing about events leading up to the war, which start to make him feel uneasy in Austria, it comes as a shock to realise he is referring to World War 1. A must for all fans of Billy Bunter and other school stories of the time.

If You Haven't Already Read Going Gently, Read It Now

If you haven't already read Going Gently by David Nobbs, creator of the Reginald Perrin and the Henry Pratt series, read it soon. It's bitter sweet, thought-provoking, laugh out loud and heartbreaking. In my opinion, as a Reggie Perrin fan almost from day one, it's his best novel ever (closely followed by each and every one of the Henry Pratt novels).

Hammer Of The Gods

I recently read Hammer Of The Gods, a biography of Led Zeppelin. It was a struggle to get through it as it was so badly written and lazily edited, and is often just a tedious list of what they played in their various concerts, but I continued in appalled fascination.

I've never been a fan, though I do own two or three of their most iconic albums as I received a slew of record tokens for my 21st birthday in 1978 and had to buy SOMETHING with them. I have since occasionally listened to Stairway to Heaven (an organist pal played a gentle version at our wedding back in June that year) and The Battle of Nevermore.

The contents of the book have put me off ever listening to them again. If the author is painting the group and its entourage accurately, they are/were a revolting collection of individuals and socio-philosophical values.

I'd be interested to hear other opinions.