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Anyone read this? The main guy Keith Talent (ex armed robber and soon to be murderer) is a QPR fan and much of the action revolves around pubs in the Golborne/Portobello Road area- brilliant local detail and focus on things like darts and pub culture in the late 80's, well worth a read
Read it back in the day, whilst there is interesting attention to detail Amis' sneering at the good folk of west London, QPR in particular, from his maligned position of absolute privelidge of a wealthy life in Holland Park, killed it for me. His head is far up his own back side I couldn't read Times Arrow, which I think was his next book. It's been gathering dust on the bookshelf for the past 2 decades...
To be honest I really didn't read it like that- didn't think he was sneering at all, but he also includes a lot of the more exclusive parts of Notting Hill/ Chelsea etc so he wasn't focused entirely on West London proper if you know what I mean
Amis sounds like a man who is very happy with the changes in football. This was an interview he did in 2001:
'I last went to a match at QPR, and I thought, "I'm never going to go to a football match again." I was startled by the ugliness of it. Then the other day I went and watched the match through a glass booth, at a party for a friend, and thought that was a bit more like it. And I did take the boys to that Manchester United-Bayern Munich game, where United scored two goals in the last two minutes, and although I'm not a United supporter there was no one happier in that stadium than me, that I didn't have to drag my children through 50,000 steaming hooligans. They were already stripped to the waist, and crying, by the last five minutes - and ugly, ugly, ugly.'
What an f'cking idiot, had no idea he said that- still think the book is worth reading for the local detail but now with a critical mindset in view of BrightonHoop and your reflections
It's a good book - that Nicola Six character is a right sort. I left my first (half finished) copy in a Bar in Greece, so I had to buy it twice!
There's another book written about an Rs fan (even has the hooped jumper on the front of my copy) - I think it was called White City Blues, or something?
"Thank you for supporting Queens Park Rangers Steep Staircase"... and I thought I'd signed up for a rollercoaster.
i tried reading london fields a few years ago and just couldn't get in to it, despite the fact i grew up around portobello road. I don't view him badly for writing about the ncier areas as most of them werent at the time he wrote the book...my problem was i just didnt think the book was any good.
Martin Amis lived in Leamington Road Villas with his rotten teeth (he spent $50,000 of a book advance fixing them in NYC) 5mins from Portobello towards Westbourne Park station.He based the pub in the book as a cross between the Golden Cross (later The Market Bar),The Colville (for darts) and The Warwick Castle which was popular with many celeb trendies in the 80's.Sexy Wendy James of Transvision Vamp - 7-balled her at pool once,whilst professionally ignoring her taut bum - Neneh Cherry,Andrea Oliver of Rip,Rig and Panic,Radio London and mum of T4 presenter Miquita,Joe Strummer popped in occasionally too but loudest and most obnoxious of them all was Fulham celeb fan- luvvie Keith Allen,the up-himself bogus poseur.More interested in Welsh rugby on Saturdays in the 80's -JCL bandwaggoner.His brother Kevin,the director of welsh indie flick Twin Town,is less arrogant and alright.He lived in Stanlake Road W12 & when I was his postie he gave me a bottle of wine @ Xmas.
The Warwick Castle @ 2:24mins
A right couple of w anchors:
[Post edited 1 Jan 1970 1:00]
'I'm 18 with a bullet.Got my finger on the trigger,I'm gonna pull it.."
Love,Peace and Fook Chelski!
More like 20StoneOfHoop now.
Let's face it I'm not getting any thinner.
Pass the cake and pies please.
Keith Allen may be a bit of a plum, but I can remember seeing him down at Fulham during the 4th division days, so even if he wasn't a regular at that point, we was still getting along to some games.
His games are tennis and snooker.He is a snob like his old man Kingsley with much prole dread yet he is a fine prose stylist. He played tennis @ St Marks Park and The Vandebilt Club as used by Princess Diana & demolished for Westfield. When he still lived in England he played snooker with fellow novelists Julian Barnes and Ian McEwan and with his best mate the late argumentative atheist intellectual one-time leftie hero the journalist & political commentator Christopher Hitchens.
'I'm 18 with a bullet.Got my finger on the trigger,I'm gonna pull it.."
Love,Peace and Fook Chelski!
More like 20StoneOfHoop now.
Let's face it I'm not getting any thinner.
Pass the cake and pies please.
For all you red-blooded LFW pervs - Hi Holloway - who've got this far on this thread and don't give a stuff about up-itself over-hyped JuanKey Notting bleeding Hill, here's some more gratuitous luscious Wendy James in her late 80's pneumatic heyday videos.Enjoy.
Rather than becoming big in Hollywood - as she ambitiously told The Face she would - she became a junkie scag addict ,now supposedly rehabilitated and lives in New York.
[Post edited 1 Jan 1970 1:00]
'I'm 18 with a bullet.Got my finger on the trigger,I'm gonna pull it.."
Love,Peace and Fook Chelski!
More like 20StoneOfHoop now.
Let's face it I'm not getting any thinner.
Pass the cake and pies please.
A bit more on what Martin Amis said after his visit to Loftus Road:
"Every British male, at some time or another, goes to his last football match. It may very well be his first football match. You stay home, thereafter, and watch it on TV. At my last football match, I noticed that the fans all had the complexion and body-scent of a cheese-and-onion crisp, and the eyes of pitbulls. But what I felt most conclusively, above and below and on every side, was ugliness - and a love of ugliness."
(From Amis's review of Bill Buford's Amongst The Thugs)
Tim Lott, probably like Nick Hornby, is a good story teller, but when it comes to association football, I like/want the facts to be right, especially when Rangers are involved, and he makes mistakes, much as Hornby doesn't watch footie at 'Fever Pitch' like most of us on here, or certainly me. This is part of the reason I had a go at writing, I wanted it to be real and accurate, which it certainly wasn't in their efforts. I recall reading Martin Amis's 'cheese & onion crisp' comment, & it still makes me me laugh to this day. If you have not got a clue about a subject, don't write/patronise the many by pretending you do, like silver spooned Amis, Clarkson or that Blur vvanker James.
Konk, you're correct, he's Fulham, not sure if he still lives on a boat, & hates Rangers: Robert Elms told me that, but I don't mind at all if he does if he's still regular since your nadir about twenty or so years ago.
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- who've got this far on this thread and don't give a stuff about up-itself over-hyped JuanKey Notting bleeding Hill, here's some more gratuitous luscious Wendy James in her late 80's pneumatic heyday videos.Enjoy.