Skip to main content

Is Clive James too clever for his own good?

This morning I read Michele Hewitson 's piece in the Herald online about her encounter with Clive James. It was the second item of hers I had read in two days. Yesterday I read the article in Canvas about the joys/terrors of opening a restaurant. the latter I felt was remarkably good - in the immersive journalistic style one might expect to read in Rolling Stone back in the days of Hunter S. Thompson or Tom Wolfe. I enjoyed it - too many articles these days are pieced together from telephone interviews and web research (resurf?) with more than a dash of polemic, Jeremy Clarksonismic irony.

The Clive James article was a little irritating. Probably because Clive James can be a little irritating. There is something odd about the man that I can't fathom. There's no doubt that he is very well read and is a humorous and engaging writer. I grew up reading his television reviews - which paved the way for the likes of Charlie Brooker and I enjoyed at least the first of his autobiographical installments. The thing about James is that he seems to try too hard. Maybe it is his Australian origins that mean he must prove his intellect, rather than simply be smart.

He puts himself a little too 'out there' for my taste - I don't really care about his 'love' of Diana, Princess of Wales. The repetition of that fascination in media makes me think of someone who buys the women's weeklies because they are fixated with Jennifer Aniston's tribulations since breaking up with Brad Pitt (or Angelina Jolie's since hooking up with same). A little sad. And it seems creepy for an elderly gentleman to continue to talk about it or be drawn on it by reporters.

A friend had bought a copy of his book - Cultural Amnesia - and I was leafing through it the other day. Thought it might make a good bedside reader - the sort of thing you can dip in and out of - an anthology of biographies. It is a hefty work though (and I couldn't help but notice the hefty price) perhaps I'll borrow it when she's done.

Don't get me wrong though. I enjoy Clive James' wit and prose. And I enjoyed reading Hewitson's articles. Must look out for them in the future. (Though the Clive James story felt a little padded out or dissembled to make word-count).
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Johnny Bunko competiton

The Great Johnny Bunko Challenge from DHP on Vimeo . There's a young chap in Indiana, one Alec Quig , who has written to me about creating a career based on a polymathic degree, from which he has recently graduated. He's an interesting young man and his concerns about going forward in life are the anxieties we all face at crossroads in our lives when we are forced to make choices. Dan Pink's latest book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need might help: "From a New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Washington Post bestselling author comes a first-of-its- kind career guide for a new generation of job seekers.There's never been a career guide like it.the fully illustrated story (ingeniously told in Manga form) of a young Everyman just out of college who lands his first job. Johnny Bunko is new to parachute company Boggs Corp., and he stumbles through his early days as a working stiff until a crisis prompts him to find a new job. St
Post a Comment
Read more and leave a comment

Ze Frank thinks so you don't have to

Ze Frank appeared on my radar when I saw his presentation among the excellent TED Talks videos . This morning I was reading Russell Davies planning blog in which he referred to a clip by Ze Frank - Where do ideas come from. Here's the transcript: "...Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima [sic] writes, "Are you ever gonna break into song again? Are you running out of ideas?" Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima, that's a good question. I run out of ideas every day! Each day I live in mortal fear that I've used up the last idea that'll ever come to me. If you don't wanna run out of ideas the best thing to do is not to execute them. You can tell yourself that you don't have the time or resources to do 'em right. Then they stay around in your head like brain crack. No matter how bad things get, at least you have those good ideas that you'll get to later. Some people get addicted to that brain crack. And the longer they wait, the more they convince themse
1 comment
Read more and leave a comment

Sexist Advertising and stereotypes

Advertising lives in the short-form world. Because mass media is so expensive the 30 second commercial is conventional and because there is so much clutter simplified signals are essential to 'cut through'. One form of communication short-hand used as a default is the stereotype - "A stereotype can be a conventional and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image, based on the assumption that there are attributes that members of the "other group" have in common. Stereotypes are sometimes formed by a previous illusory correlation, a false association between two variables that are loosely correlated if correlated at all. Though generally viewed as negative perceptions, stereotypes may be either positive or negative in tone." In the 1950's and 60's when men dominated advertising stereotypical impressions of women as inferior or subservient were not only commonplace but usual. It was normal to show women as housekeepers, largely because most wer
9 comments
Read more and leave a comment