I am currently reading quite possibly the worst autobiography in the history of political literature. It is touch and go as to whether I can face carrying on. Any guesses as to whose it is?
UPDATE 12.10pm: Ok, Ok, most of you got it. It's Prescott. I have rarely read anything so dire. Despite the fact that it has been ghosted by a great author, Hunter Davies, it read as if it were written by a nine year old. I wonder if Davies got a little confused. He had just finished ghosting Wayne Rooney's autobiography. Perhaps he found it difficult to change style. I shall do a proper review when (and if) I finish it. It won't make for pretty reading.
67 comments:
It's Prescott's.
Yours?
it has to be mine.....
Prescott!
Prescott?
Happy Hammering : Iain Dale's Autobiography?
John Prescott's?
Not sure whether they are exactly autobiography, but Sir Edward Heath's runinations in sailing 'The Course of My Life' and music 'A Joy for Life' were pretty shocking. Dull, pompous and self-reverential.
I would have thought you had read 'Prezza' before now, but maybe you have 'pulled your punches' until now ?
And if Prezza is the answer, then it's a pretty bad question..
John Prescott
Has to be Prescott.
John Prescott?
Iain, you said earlier that you had a choice between 'er and 'im.
Since you've read 'er, it has to be 'im. The man who to words is what a bulldozer is to pressa-idigitation ?
Alan Douglas
Prescott's ?
Got to be Prescott's
''My Struggle'' by Hazel Blears?
Could it be that friend of Tatchell's - that nice Mr Mugabe?
Is it John Prescott's ghost writer's one per chance?
Al Gore?
Al Gore ?
Edwina Currie's Apart from destroying the British Egg industry and shagging John Major, what did she actually do?
Cherie Blair's?
If it's Prescott's, console yourself by reading Philip Hensher's review of it (online) in The Spectator.
John Prescott doesn't count, his autobiography was written by Hunter Davies.
Shurely Ming Campbell - so accurately parodied by Craig Brown in Private Eye?
Are you really reading Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf ?
Labour's candidate at Henley ("Go forth - and come fifth"?)
Prescott used a ghost writer, Hunter Davies, who apparently used the great man's speaking style.
It has been praised in some quarters.
As Alan Douglas implies, this is a question designed only to see of we have been paying attention. I look forward to a Mastermind special subject of "Iain Dales's Diary", with the compilers getting confused and coming up with lots of questions about a 1950s radio soap...
However, I seem to remember that Norman Fowler's was pretty dire. But no doubt Prescott's is dire in his own special way.
Mine?
Has to be Prezza. Makes you want to puke, eh? Ha ha ha.
Margaret Thatcher. It has to be Mrs [NEVER 'Lady', 'Baroness' or anything else] Thatcher. Self-righteous, sanctimonious words by the yard, with no hint of humour [conscious or unconscious], objectivity or self-awareness. TINA!
Is this anything to do with the "Ten Top political traitors" we were promised ages ago?
Prezza, or how I learned to stop governing and love the secretary
Bliar?
David Owen's takes some beating.
Whatever it is, it has to be pretty bad. As opposed to published diaries, political autobiographies are usually written by politicians with little experience of writing, with predictable results.
I would guess Prescott, but perhaps Clinton, although I suspect you have read that already, as well as Heath, Jenkins, Healey, Fowler all of which were dire.
Is a Coastal Towns Compendium? With Conwy, Chichester and Dover?
Barack Obama?
Prescott
My career at your Expense(s)
by M Martin?
Prescott: it was shit.
It can't be Prescott's auotobiography as he can't read, let alone write. How It might be something he thre up over his ghost writer.
Carter's latest offering of peanut wisdom.
"Ministers Decide" by Norman Fowler.
If it isn't, it should be.
Could it be Lord Levy. Who would want to read about him anyway!?
Alternativley have you finally got round to reading Bill Clinton's? I've heard that is an epic struggle.....and that is just teh struggle to pick it up as it's so weighty!
Livingstone's?
Prescott.
It has to be The Enterprise Years by Lord Young
John Prescott
His autobiography was so bad that it's been re-issued under a new title
Surely not Stanislav!
They can't even shift it at "only" £1.99 in Bookends !
- FonyBlair said...
"Could it be Lord Levy. Who would want to read about him anyway!?"
Iain has already said that he would recommend Levy's book.
- Lord James Bigglesworth said...
"Bliar?"
He hasn't written it yet.
- Gallimaufry said...
"Cherie Blair's?"
Iain said the Cherie Blair's autobiography helped him through his recent illness, so he can't entirely disapprove of it.
- Peter Risdon said...
"David Owen's takes some beating."
It's one of Iain's Top 75 Political Books.
David Batt said...
If it's Prescott's, console yourself by reading Philip Hensher's review of it (online) in The Spectator.
Thanks for the tip, David. I've just read it
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/books/752746/the-autobiography-of-a-fig-leaf.thtml
and it's made my day. He doesn't pull any punches (Hensher that is) does he?
Alex
Roy Jankins's "Life at the Centre" was brilliantly written.
I notice though he was a little disingenuous in claiming that his success in getting an audience with J F Kennedy when he was just an Opposition backbencher was down to Kennedy's graciousness of character, rather than to the fact that Roy was apparently having an affair with JFK's sister in law at the time.
You really all ought to try my pick before you make that decision final.
I am afraid John Prescott is not of the same intellectual calibre as Wayne Rooney.
Donal Blaney?
FS
Don't worry, Brown's will be worse when it comer out!
David Blunketts autobiography?
I couldn't read those white bumps either I gave up half way through when my fingers were bleeding
I am sorry to say it was pretty bad,and I write as a huge Prescott fan. Really.
Campbell's "The Blair Years (Hardcover)"
on sale at Amazon for:-
S/hand, £2.88
New £3.52
RRP £25.00
How the mighty fall!
Rex said...
"Campbell's "The Blair Years (Hardcover)"
on sale at Amazon for:-
S/hand, £2.88
New £3.52
RRP £25.00
How the mighty fall!"
John Major's autobiography is on sale (used) at Amazon for £0.01
How the mighty have fallen indeed!
"Alex
Roy Jenkins's "Life at the Centre" was brilliantly written."
Fair enough, but I got the impression that he couldn't stand anybody whose ideas didn't match his own.
Having stood for the leadership of the Labour Party and come third, he takes tax payer funded boondoggle to Brussels, only to come back to run a party to the right of the socialists. He then gets all stroppy when he thinks Owen's views move too far to the right. Can't stand the people to the left of him nor the people to the right (and we are talking exclusively about people to the left (on paper) of the Liberals).
Chapter 15
Went t't' West End Chippy wi' Austin Mitchell, got steak puddin' mushy peas and double chips wi' a fish on top.
Austin just 'ad a can o' Tizer, the wimp.
Am I getting the essence of it?
It's got to be Tracey Temple's.
The 'ghost' writer of the Prescott crap, Hunter Davies, cannot really be very bright; he is a Bliarite 'psychofant' and 'oikball' fan as I understand it. Hardly the marks of intelligence.
Just finished it myself and it's actually very good.
Don't fool yourself in to thinking you are intelligent just because you can construct a sentence in a rigid academic fashion.
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