The nation’s most ubiquitous Wiganite has a new book out.
It has much in common with his previous publications: a breezy (i.e. rushed) style; sweeping generalisations rendered in whimsy; man-of-the-people rants; but above all, a crap title.
Adventures On The High Teas follows Cider With Roadies and Pies And Prejudice in sporting wordplay that somehow doesn’t work. The source of the title bears no relation to the content of the associated text; the title mixes metaphors and tells you nothing of what the book is actually about; and there’s an attempt at a pun that doesn’t come off.
Anyway, seeing as how the man seems to be stuck in a rut of sniffy inconsequential travelogues, the TV Cream Matrix Databank has come up with four possible future titles for Maconie’s consideration:
1) The Road To Wogan’s Ear
One man’s story of first hiding from, then working for, Radio 2. Besides referencing the nation’s most popular DJ, the title conveniently boasts not one but two puns that don’t work.
2) The Cant & Murray Tales
How two men called Brian and Gordon joined forces to create one of the most iconic children’s series of all time. Again, the title handily tries but fails to be a proper pun, in the process rendering the sentiments of the source utterly irrelevant.
3) The Importance Of Being Furnished
Join the author as he pays loving tribute to the living rooms of the 1970s, an era he dubs ‘the decade that taste forgot’. Note how some atrocious rhyming and vague sense of upper-class snobbery combine to create another money-spinning title.
4) The New Collins Dictionary
Stuart Maconie itemises everything he likes and loathes about his ex-colleague and sometime gag-writing partner for Clive James.
drbendy
March 23, 2009 at 8:44 pm
A Third Of A Hand Is Worth Two In The Bushell
Maconie with the ‘Novel he’s always wanted to write’ Set in an alternate universe where Jeremy Beadle is the fascist dictator of a Steam run Britain, who makes everyday April Fools day: thousands are crippled every year from dangerous japes in the work place. While Gary Bushell is the leader of the breast loving underground intent on strangling the fat cats with their own red tape.