Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier - The Panama Papers

This is an interesting and very thoroughly researched account of the ‘Panama Papers’ leak from the law firm Mossack Fonseca that began in 2015.  The amount of data released is staggeringly large, some 11.5 million documents or 22.6 terabytes of data.  The journalists involved needed very expensive and advanced computers to search such a large database, including a $20,000 super computer!

The German journalists who originally received this data leak from an anonymous source shared the data with other investigative journalist around the world through an organisation called ICIJ (The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists).  As such, hundreds of journalists from different countries simultaneously searched the data for high profile figures in their countries and collaborated together on building evidence and writing stories.  The whole project was kept secret for probably 12-24 months, which is a staggering achievement given the sensitivity of the data and the number of people involved.  It says a great deal about the integrity of the consortium and its members!

Essentially, there is really one story; the rich and powerful make extensive usage of offshore companies and trust structures to move and conceal their assets.  These same structures are used by thieves, gangsters, terrorists, drug and human traffickers and all sorts of other criminals too.  They are also used by lots of the world’s largest corporations to avoid tax.  We are taken through several iterations of how the journalists built up evidence of such dealings for politicians, art dealers, corporate executives and footballers.  This gives a good example of the journalistic technique involved but the point, for me at least, always remains the same: Why are these structures allowed to persist? I really struggle to think of a legitimate use for a company with nominee directors, nominee beneficial shareholders and zero transparency on ultimate ownership.

I read in the FT yesterday (May 2017) that assets in the BVI have doubled since 2010 to $1.5trn.  Two-thirds of these companies are used by corporations for ‘tax structuring’ so it certainly doesn’t seem like the Panama Papers have caused a big fall in their usage.  It is probably worth noting that the majority of corporations using these structures don’t use illegally obtained assets, which making them less gratuitously illegal than say Putin’s best friend amassing billions of dollars in Russian shares.  However, the question still remains as to why these structures are allowed to survive, and flourish, today.  One possible answer might make appeal to the sanctity of privacy whereby we shouldn’t be obliged to divulge everything to the government.  However, as the authors point out, all that would be required here is the name, date of birth and business address of an asset’s owner.  This sort of system already exists in some Scandinavian countries although, presumably, their citizens could still use offshore structures to avoid it!  A more likely explanation may be that these structures suit the rich and powerful very nicely and so they will be very reluctant to seem them go.  This argument holds for countries as well as individuals as both the US and the UK benefit from the existence of tax havens within, or closely linked to, their jurisdictions.  Neither argument have much merit to me but the latter strikes me as the far more likely explanation for their continued existence.

These structures are really a slap in the face to the average citizen of an average country.  They’re saying explicitly what many people probably intuited already; there is one rule for you and another for people with money or power.  I see this as a serious problem and one that is only likely to get worse as changes in technology and data leaks like this one make secrecy harder and harder to achieve.  As Brunello Cucinelli, the CEO of cashmere company whose clients would certainly be rich enough to use the type of products offered by Mossack Fonseca, says, “Mankind is becoming more ethical, but it is not happening because man has decided to become better than he was 100 years ago. It’s because we know we live in a glass house where everybody can see.”  Leaks like the Panama Papers demonstrate the veracity of this idea and it seems like increasing digitisation will see this trend continue notwithstanding improvements in encryption.

One of the most evocative examples given in the book concerned a man whose father had lost a famous Modigliani painting, Seated Man with Cane, to the Nazis in occupied France.  The painting had been auctioned by the Nazis, disappeared for a while and then been auctioned again by Christie’s in 1996 to an offshore company without named beneficiaries.  When a relation of the looted art collector attempts to have his painting restored to him, the court finds it has no official owner and so the suit is withdrawn.  The Panama Papers reveal that the gallery owner Helly Nahmad, who had displayed the painting twice since its purchase at Christie’s and was suspected to be the current owner, was in fact the ultimate beneficiary even though he denied this on several occasion in order to keep the stolen painting.  It’s a sad story of dishonesty and a lack of decency.  I can’t comment on the strength of the legal case presented but I think it is obvious to everyone that Nahmad lied about his ownership of the painting.  Encouragingly, this painting was seized at the Swiss Freeport in 2016 as a result of the Panama Papers.

What about all the other people mentioned in the leak?  Have they been held to account and brought to justice?  Without having investigated each case individually it’s hard to comment definitively.  However, I have the overall impression that not a great deal happened after these incredible revelations.  Perhaps it’s because, in most cases, the ultimate beneficiaries of these companies and trusts are protected by the law.  If that’s the case, it’s simply yet another restatement of the double standards that exist for the rich.  Or as Leona Helmsley said famously, “only the little people pay taxes”.  In the end, whether it’s stolen state assets or untaxed assets moved offshore, the rich and powerful are still taking from those who don’t have much, which is the bleak and uncharitable reality.

This book is moving and powerful for the spotlight it shines on the dark corners of the global financial and legal systems.  It was also fascinating to learn about the journalistic practicalities of dealing with such a large and sensitive leak.  The negative points for me were the fact that, even though the individuals involved are different in each case, the stories have the same essential narrative.  So and so shouldn’t have an account or, better still, claims he doesn’t have one but then, lo and behold, he or she does have one! The style of prose was also slightly grating to me.  There is a lot mock surprise and attempted irony in the vein of, “X said he didn’t have any offshore dealings so it was confusing / surprising to find….” or “if X really didn’t have any knowledge, it’s odd to find him sending an email to….”.  I didn’t particularly enjoy it and found it got a bit repetitive.  On the whole, it was an informative account of an amazingly large data leak and the staggering amount of hard work the journalists involved with the ICIJ did to bring their findings from the data to press.  All of them deserve our thanks and congratulations for doing such important, and in some cases dangerous, work.

Nick Bilton - Hatching Twitter

I’d like to preface this by saying this is the only book about Twitter I’ve ever read.  I didn’t know anything about the company or it’s founders before I started and this is the only source that I have consulted in forming my opinions about it and them.  As such, I don’t claim any kind of objective veracity for my opinions, which are simply the impressions I formed while reading this author’s account.  In fairness to Nick Bilton, he seems to have researched this topic deeply and diligently but his is only one perspective, formed at some remove from the actual events, and I feel like these limitations should be acknowledged from the outset.

With that having been said, I found all four of the main figures are a bit nauseating personally!  With social skills in short supply, they all seems to betray one another and never air their true feelings face to face; preferring to go behind each others backs and avoid confrontation.  

To attempt a basic outline, Ev Williams is a quite likeable tech entrepreneur who is passionate about ‘push button publishing for the masses’, which seems worthy of respect.  To this end, he founds Blogger, sells it to Google and then quits to start another business, Odeo, with his neighbour Noah Glass.  This business focuses on podcasts and dies a death when Apple enter the market via its, then dominant, iTunes platform.  A young programmer called Jack (Dorsey) working at Odeo with Ev and Noah comes up for the basic idea for Twitter while DUI with Noah.  The three then work up the idea via ‘hackathons’ with various other employees at Odeo including the fourth co-founder Biz Stone.  Noah is the project’s first leader, helping incubate it with Jack at Odeo.  Jack, who seems to have brilliant ideas but be a little socially dyslexic, promptly goes behind Noah’s back and tells Ev to sack him and make him boss.  Ev does this and Jack runs the project, and latterly company, until Ev decides he wants to be CEO and ousts Jack as CEO by going behind his back and getting the board to remove him.  Ev also owned the majority of the company at this time and it seems money definitely spoke in this instance.  However, despite his effective removal from the day to day operations of the company, Jack, who retained the title of (silent) Chairman, goes on a media fuelled propaganda tour to inflate his profile before repaying the favour and managing to convince the board to get rid of Ev and re-appoint him!  Admittedly, Dick Costolo serves as interim CEO to soften the blow and Jack returns under the title of ‘Executive Chairman’ but it’s still an impressive feat for Jack to convince essentially the same board that got rid of him to then reinstate him despite Ev being the majority shareholder.  I should point out that I am assuming that Ev was still the majority shareholder but the book doesn’t go into much detail on the capital structure and equity holdings as the company evolves. I would’ve liked to know more, especially as I feel it’s relevant to the power struggles.  There would certainly have been further funding rounds since Ev became CEO so perhaps he had been diluted?  The book doesn’t relate.  Regardless of how impressive and tenacious this move was, I was still left feeling like all of the co-founders had a phobia of speaking openly with their so-called friends or treating them decently.  Is this just the nature of working with your friends at a company that is growing almost unthinkably quickly?  I sincerely hope that I’d have the decency to speak to someone face to face about a problem I had with them.  There again, perhaps these ‘friendships’ within Twitter actually signified little more than shared passions for technology, the project, fame or fortune that had nothing to do with love and personal affection.  The overall impression leaves you thinking, ‘it’s hard to believe how badly these so-called friends treat each other!’ Biz Stone comes off a little better but it is the best of a bad bunch, really.  His role seems fairly ill-defined but, according to the book, the venture capital investors were genuinely worried by his threats to quit meaning he must have been important at the company.  Perhaps mediating between the gigantic egos, power struggles and passive aggressive non-confrontations of the other founders; predominantly Ev and Jack as Noah had been ousted so completely, and so early in the piece, despite having an absolutely central role in the products creation, including the name.  However, this assessment of Biz’s job may be uncharitable given he is also mentioned on numerous occasions in connection with forming and preserving the culture of the company.  While this is hard to measure empirically it is of indubitable importance.  Perhaps the best example is when Biz attempts to stop Jack becoming a ‘moderator’ of some Twitter event with the President on the basis that the company’s culture forbade any role of this kind as it could be construed as Twitter participating in the conversation rather than simply hosting a platform on which it could take place.  Incidentally, when Biz sends an e-mail to point this out he finds that the recently returned Jack, now Executive Chairman, has suspended it!  This is typical of the kind of interaction between the four.

Another group who come out of the leadership struggles and changes looking very bad are the venture capital investors and board members.  Why are they condoning, and indeed facilitating, so much backstabbing and intrigue within the management, which must surely be detrimental to the company culture?  A charitable interpretation would probably appeal to the vastly different types of CEO a rapidly growing tech company needs during the various different stages of its development.  However, I don’t think this really holds true in this case.  Seemingly, Ev fires Noah in 2006-ish and Jack is CEO until late 2008 when Ev uses the board to remove him.  Seemingly this same board, plus one Peter Fenton from Benchmark was very enthusiastic about reinstating Jack and may also have bought a whooping great stake in the company, then ousted Ev in favour of Jack in only late 2010! Can so many changes really be justified by the needs of the company alone?  To me, it sounds far more like bunch of disingenuous schemers playing politics for money and power; both at the board and management level.  Fred Wilson and Bijan Sabet, from Union Square Ventures in NY, come out looking the worst at the board level.  Having helped Ev plot his removal of Jack in 2008 they then plot with Jack to remove Ev in 2010; talk about a toxic environment and a lack of trust!

The book itself painted some quite vivid pictures of the founders’ early lives and the early days of Twitter.  On the whole though, I found it a bit long on description and ‘setting the scene’ and a bit short on detail.  For example, the text has no dates in it so it is hard to get a firm grasp of the chronology.  I’ve also mentioned before I would have appreciated more detail on the capital and ownership structures.  Perhaps this sort of information is too niche for this type of book.  However, I felt like it would have benefitted from a few more dates and a few less descriptions of how many drinks these crrrrazy young entrepreneurs were imbibing! Given the large-ish cast of founders, company members, investors and hangers on the book should have had an index.  The prose can be a bit clunky in places too with one passage referring to how, “their sneakers tickled the concrete sidewalk”! Another passage I found irritating was, “In the past, history was always written by the victors.  But in the age of Twitter, history is written by everyone.  The victors became the ones with the loudest voices who get to tell their version of history”.  To me, this is deeply ill-conceived and does little more than restate, at length, and misinterpret the original material.  Namely, “the victors write history”.  In the past, accounts of what happened were clearly written by both the victors and the defeated.  However, the victors, who possess more money and power, have far more success in disseminating their version.  Exactly the same seems to be true of Twitter; lots of people write about an event and, ordinarily, those users who are most famous or have most followers succeed in disseminating their versions most effectively.  The passage does serve to raise the question of whether people tweeting are really ‘writing history’ or more accurately ‘writing source material’.  It’s possible to view the two as the same thing.  However, on the whole I felt like the both this passage, and the book in general, had a slightly awestruck tone in relation to Twitter’s technology itself.  Obviously, Twitter was a hugely disruptive and innovative force within society and has changed the way many people consume media.  However, I would probably have stopped short of describing it as changing the way history was written.  Has anything we consider ‘history’ today even been written in the past ten years, for instance?

There was one aspect of the book that caused me more trouble than any other.  It relates to the civil war between Jack and Ev.  Around p148 we are informed that Jack has been fired as CEO and will occupy a new role as ‘(silent) Chairman’, crucially without a vote on the board, which we are informed has been transferred to Evan.  To quote, “it would belong to Ev, who would maintain Jack’s voting rights...and would now have two board seats”.  Confusingly though, by the time we reach p259 and Jack is now in the role of ouster and Ev in the role of about-to-be-fired-CEO we find Jack seconding a motion to remove Ev.  How exactly has he managed to do this without a vote?  I found this bit the most troublesome because, unless I’ve missed something, the book seems to contradict its own assertion about what had happened, which is a fairly major flaw for a book purporting to be historical.  It’s quite a good example of how the author prioritised these sort of atmospheric, movie scenes above factual detail or lucid explanation of the chronology.

I learned something about Twitter’s history from this book, and it was enjoyable in places, but there were too many annoying mistakes and omissions for me to rate it very highly.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez - One Hundred Years Of Solitude

The beginning of this book blew me away.  I loved the prose although I did wonder if it might be even better in the author’s native Spanish!  It’s incredibly vivid and full of fun with almost cartoonish characters and magical situations and happenings.  The whole things brims with an originality, creativity and vivacity that’s totally infectious.  I loved the relationship between the original Buendia and Melquiades, his gypsy friend and trading partner, which is wonderfully rich and well described.

Sadly, the vibrant and engaging opening quickly gives way to future generations of Buendias and as these generations proliferate the characters become ever sketchier and events become increasingly haphazard and disjointed.  Indeed, I found it very difficult to work out what was going on after about the halfway point.  A family tree or list of characters is absolutely essential but, sadly, there was none in the edition I read.  The confusion is deepened by the fact that the successive generations of Buendia’s all have the same names. I didn’t enjoy the second half nearly as much as the first largely because of the increasingly frenetic pace at which new characters and ideas are introduced only to be discarded in favour of even newer ones.   This may have contributed to the following impression I formed during the latter part of the novel.

Namely, I found the characters and content of the second half of the book chaotic and orderless.  The prose remains engaging and evocative but I started to feel like it was more of a collection of fantastical, broadly unconnected short stories rather than a coherent whole.  Scenes such as the brothel filled with exotic animals struck me as flights of stylistic fancy with little or no connection to the broader plot.  It made me wonder if there was an elaborate allegory contained within the novel to which I was completely oblivious, which I continue to entertain as a distinct possibility.  However, the allegory would have to be very complicated, and the reader would have to have a very detailed knowledge of it, to require such an enormous cast.

Given my crescendo of confusion as the novel continued,  I found myself wondering at the book's conclusion what I had really understood from this novel.  Certainly, the repetitiveness or cyclicality of history and families was one theme I felt was ubiquitous.  The book starts with a pig-child born of incest and finishes with the same.  Characteristics and events are echoed down the generations and while it’s not the case that each generation lives the same life there was a definite sense of a historical cyclicality that is larger and more powerful than the individuals within it.  Indeed, this sense of cyclicality, that prosperity will turn to poverty and hubris to nemesis, was an enjoyable aspect of the book for me.  I only felt that it had been rather lost in the riot of characters and magical events.  

Another theme that seemed to be contained in many of the magical happenings concerns a loss of senses.  For example, for a long period in the town no one sleeps and, later on, Ursula goes blind.  As to the wider significance of this, I was unsure.  Perhaps it points to periods in history when everyone is in thrall to some new and fashionable idea and is unaware of the damage such a break with the past will bring; here I’m thinking mainly about the collective insomnia about which the townsfolk are initially enthusiastic before realising its drawbacks.  Another incident with obvious historical and philosophical implications is the massacre of 3,000 people in the town square.  This bloody incident and the denial of it by both the government and the banana company seem to point to the ability of powerful elites to manipulate the historical record and create their own reality quite apart from the facts of the situation.  This section feels angry and politically motivated and may refer to the treatment of anti-government elements in the author’s native Columbia and subsequent revision of the historical record.

The role of women is clearly most directly encountered through the role of Ursula, the original Buendia’s wife and the matriarch of the family through the one hundred years covered in the book.  Her resilient, capable character seems to illustrate the central importance of feminine influence within a family.  However, the suffering of tormented men at the hands of Buendia women, for example Amaranta, preclude any simplistic interpretation of women struggling to maintain order and decency amidst a shower of immoral and impulsive men!  

Both men and women indulge in the extremely wild and promiscuous sexual behaviour throughout the generations and the novel.  There are large quantities of inappropriate sexual relations, incest and illegitimate children.  However, this doesn’t necessitate equally large quantities of sexually explicit prose and it’s impressive that Marquez achieves the feeling of sexual intimacy and renders it vividly without being particularly graphic.  

On the whole, my enjoyment of the book was marred by the proliferation of characters and circumstances in the second half.  It was too much to keep track of and I felt the quality of each character or circumstance decreased the more of them Marquez kept adding!  However, the quality of the prose and his incredible eye for details remained magical throughout.  Never ending rains, a whole town without sleep, an orphan girl who’ll eat only whitewash and earth, a man followed constantly by swarms of yellow butterflies; these are only a few examples of features that really capture, and ignite, the imagination in a way few other books I’ve read have.  For this reason, it’s a magical book.  Albeit one best read in conjunction with something deeply practical and unmagical; a family tree!          

Ernest Cline - Ready Player One

I should start out by saying I’m not much of a geek.  A lot of this book was lost on me in terms of the references to arcane 70s and 80s TV shows and videogames.  I wouldn’t say it diminished my enjoyment of it too much, either.  Perhaps I might have enjoyed it more if I did have the background knowledge of a bonafide geek born c. 1970 but there was still lots to like without such specialist knowledge.  This might seem a little strange at first.  The book is a geek classic and contains an absolutely huge amount of fairly specific information and discussion of videogames, movies and TV series that you’d think would be boring if you didn’t know what was being talked about.  That wasn’t the case for me and I was pleasantly surprised.  What was it that made this book enjoyable despite the vast majority of the subject matter being too esoteric for me as a reader?

The prose is nothing special and reminded me of something a bit like Dan Brown or Harry Potter.  There’s the occasional clanger, like “a lump of runny mashed potatoes” on p280, which sounds like a physical impossibility.  It’s not stellar stuff but it certainly is page turning and it definitely isn’t so bad that it inhibits your enjoyment of the narrative.  However, looking back on it after finishing, it isn’t really the narrative that makes this book fun either.  There’s a love story that isn’t very interesting but does involve some great snarky geek dialogue, which is a staple throughout the book.  There’s the fight against the evil and powerful corporate enemy IOI, which reminded me a lot of The Matrix and was fairly formulaic.  The narrative can be highly inventive in places and, like the prose, isn’t notably bad but nor is it very original or exceptional taken on its own.  On the whole, it focuses on fairly traditional and mundane themes, and contains these themes within the OASIS, a virtual, world-within-a-world simulation, and offers little comment or reflection on what’s happening outside it.  Occasionally, one of the protagonists will reflect on how lonely their physical lives have become but this is usually dismissed when the player remembers the significance of their actions and relationships within OASIS and their absolute infatuation with it.  

A good example of this primacy of OASIS over the real world is the incident when IOI try to blow up Wade.  In this episode, IOI believe Wade is inside his trailer, stacked on top of many others in a post-apocalyptic trailer park.  I was amazed that Wade doesn’t think to mention to the IOI executive threatening him that he isn’t there in the hope of saving some of the hundreds of lives that are later lost!   Granted, IOI might have blown up the stack anyway and  Wade certainly doesn’t have much time to think about what he’s going to do either.  However, he might have mentioned it on the way out to alleviate his conscience.  He barely reflects on the incident at all and certainly never questions his own actions and involvement, which seems extraordinary to me.  Maybe it is because he doesn’t really like anyone who lives in the stacks except for Mrs. Gilmore, for whom he does briefly mourn.  Or perhaps it’s because he wants IOI to think he is dead.  Either way he doesn’t seem to experience much regret over the death of his family and neighbours.  In fairness, the only experience we have of his family is them stealing from him and being horrible to him.  His relationship with Mrs Gilmore is better though and he genuinely doesn’t seem that perturbed by her death or his role in it.  Perhaps the simplest explanation is that the world he inhabits is dangerous and violent and the currency of life has become devalued in this nightmare. This all takes place around p145 and I think the incident does a good job of highlighting where the focus on the book lies; OASIS.  OASIS is preferable to the real world and, at least for the protagonists, has actually become the real world.  As such, the book concentrates on the 80s, pop culture, geek-fest egg hunt taking place in OASIS and the associated action-movie narrative rather than philosophizing about the condition of the humans on earth or the impact being involved in the death of 100s of them might have on a person!

The book is a high-tech, high-geek, adventure romp and not a meditation on society like 1984.  The author’s love for the main subject matter and his ability to deliver it to you with some of this enthusiasm still attached is what really make this book for me.  It’s as if the author has tried to imagine his perfect world and then described it for you.  It’s a world in which everyone loves what he loves, computer games and OASIS, and this has made his otherwise niche knowledge highly valued and essential to the survival of the ‘world’ as he knows it.  It’s like a geek dream world where, as opposed to being a marginalised sub-culture, all things cherished by geeks have become of central importance for society as a whole. The world he creates is fantastic too.  There are characters and buildings borrowed from all sorts of sci-fi movies and video games, both explicitly and implicitly, fantasy houses, vehicles, challenges and battles all play their part in this homage to the 1980s.  Some of the details are really excellent and the overall effect is captivating.  The orgy of geek sensibilities and relics engenders your enthusiasm as a reader precisely because it’s so enthusiastically expressed.  I felt like the author’s enjoyment and love of the subject had really been captured in his story.  You have to love the way he revels in his own geekiness and it is infectious, like listening to a child breathlessly recount some imagined adventure.  It’s enjoyable to see someone derive so much pleasure from self expression!  

Of course, I’m sure there are some problems with the rules and structure of the world he has created.  However, this is surely a problem for all but the very simplest of imagined worlds and I think it is reasonable to expect a reader to suspend their disbelief.  I sometimes struggle with this but this novel was so fast-paced there weren’t too many examples that really annoyed me.  The most gratuitous example was that it’s unrealistic that Wade has to get a job to pay his bills in the real world in Part 2.  If the online game was anywhere near as popular as it is depicted as being there would presumably be a way of converting some of his huge OASIS earnings into real world cash to pay his bills, which don’t seem hugely lavish.  There even seems to be one method described on p220!

On the whole, I enjoyed this book and thought it really stood out for the passion and enthusiasm the author conveys through it.  It’s not a deep, philosophically reflective piece and shouldn’t be read as such.  It’s a high octane, action packed love letter to 1980s culture written by a totally smitten, seriously dedicated and single-minded suitor!  I didn’t think the prose or the narrative were wonderful taken alone  but the overall effect was great and highly enjoyable.  Even for a n00b like me!

Mara Shalhoup - BMF: The Rise And Fall Of Big Meech And The Black Mafia Family

This book was well researched and had a lot of interesting information about Big Meech, his associates and the BMF.  A lot of this information appears to come from police records and other public sources, perhaps because interviews were hard to arrange or didn’t bear much fruit.  I suspect this was the case as the author does seem to have interviewed a lot of people, for example the family and friends of a man murdered in a club parking lot by a BMF associate, so it would be strange for her to simply not bother with the other more major players.  Nonetheless, this information is well marshalled and presented in a coherent and understandable manner, which is no mean feat given the intricacy and secrecy of the network in question.

What the book lacked in personal information, for example interviews with family members or childhood friends and individual psychological analysis, it partially made up with coverage of the practical and operational aspects of the business.  Deliveries, logistics, movement of cash, procurement of vehicles and property and ways to launder cash are all covered in detail.  The quantities involved are large with couriers regularly getting busted with 10 keys and major stash houses often containing millions of dollars and 100s of keys when busted.  As such, the crew must have been making serious money and I was amazed at how much of this could be used to buy cars and homes in the names of other people without much legitimate income of their own.  This highlighted how, before the inauguration of the wiretaps that would incriminate most of the top level BMF members, building a case against a drug dealer as flashy and brazen as Big Meech is a much more difficult task than one might imagine.  One has to suspect that, given the amounts of money involved, Meech and BMF were either paying off the police, using tactics of intimidation or both.

Another aspect I found interesting was the impermanence of drug money and the total lack of personal ownership that existed for the top management of BMF.  Cars, houses and jewelry had to be put in the names of other people and, in some cases, paid for by them via laundered money.  Given the huge quantities of money involved and the usual mentality of wanting to own things that’s attached to a desire for wealth, this attitude struck me as unusual.  Meech’s own attitude to money, that you can’t take it with you so you have to spend as much of it as possible, is in stark contrast to the hoarding tendencies that can be observed in others motivated by money.  Meech’s younger brother, Terry, appears to have been more concerned with owning assets, rather than spending wildly, but, counterintuitively, this would eventually land in him more trouble when the police were building a case against him whereas evidence of Meech’s assets was non-existent.  Conversely, Terry worried that Meech’s excessive lifestyle and high profile appearances in rap videos and magazines would bring unwanted attention to the organisation.  In the end, it was Terry talking on the phone and not Meech hiring out BMF billboards around Atlanta that proved to be far more damaging from a legal perspective.

The personality of Meech is intriguing but remains largely unexamined.  He is described as more fraternal and caring than his brother Terry, who is described as manipulative and paranoid.  Certainly Meech’s generosity towards his crew seems unrivalled but I was left wondering what his motivation was.  Clearly not simply money for the sake of accumulation.  For one thing, it struck me at several points throughout the book that Meech was fundamentally not that interested in hoarding or accumulating assets as he doesn’t seem to take much time or trouble to set up legitimate fronts through which to clean his money.  Rather, he prefers to concentrate on balling in the club, buying fleets of luxury cars and lots of jewelry.  This seems to be partially justified by the idea that these shows of flamboyance were the way to break into the rap game and start making legitimate money for BMF.  It seems like it is the excitement of the lifestyle and his love of ‘the game’ and its organisation that really drives him.  He love for cars and jewelry, shared by his brother, also seem to have been a serious motivating factor.  However, at some level he’s also clearly an egotist, for example the rap video appearances and legendary birthday parties, and that this too is more important than money.  It seems almost like a caricature of a black drug gang that BMF were trafficking drugs and money in private jets, limos and hummers; why on earth not use something a bit lower key!?!  It’s exactly this kind of lifestyle that is glamorized in lots of trap and dirty south rap and, for this reason, Big Meech is a huge cultural figure for me.  He was a man really living the alternative, black American dream and his lifestyle and image are ever present in late 90s and early 2000s southern gangster rap.  All the rappers want to be like Meech but, at the same time, Meech wants to be like the rappers.

Given this status as a man who was really living what most other people just rapped about it’s strange that his own lavishly funded efforts in the music industry didn’t yield more commercial success.  Undoubtedly a huge hip-hop head, Meech’s sole artist, Blue Da Vinci, never sold many records.  Meech does seem to play an important role in Young Jeezy’s stellar rise during this period but never signed him to his label.  As an aside, Jeezy gets some serious validation as a major cocaine trafficker by some of Meech’s associates in the book. At some points, it seems like Meech’s ultimate goal is recognition in the rap industry but, there again, given his huge success selling drugs why didn’t he make the transition earlier or in a more wholehearted way?  In the end I was left confused about what actually motivated Meech to build this empire; perhaps a combination of the excitement of the lifestyle, his love of spending money and an enjoyment of seeing his own ideas and principles acted out to produce greater and greater success.     

On a more negative note, the book's style was a little sensationalist and cliched for my tastes.  Clearly, this is a matter of taste rather than subjective judgement but I found the prose to be at its best when describing some of the complex transactions and networks involved in the operation of the business rather than when describing, presumably imagined, scenes of lavish opulence.

Finally, I did like this book as the subject matter is fascinating to me.  BMF were the epitome of a fast paced, lawless and intoxicating lifestyle that was synonymous with a style of Southern gangster rap that exploded into global significance around the same time the gang reached its zenith.  In some ways, BMF is deeply impressive; building an extensive and profitable network while managing to contain the infighting and conflict that usually ruin such organisation.  To be making millions of dollars a year from drugs and to be balling like Meech, to a level where he was a celebrity in his own right, is impressive for the sheer temerity of it.  Meech himself says that his most cherished memories come from his experiences with Young Jeezy while he was blowing up.  It is a fairytale lifestyle that most people can only dream about.  On the other hand, the obsession with cars and jewelry seem needlessly risky and a bit childish as an ultimate motivation.  Similarly, the lack of serious organisation of fronts to launder money diminishes my respect for BMF’s operations but, at the same time, shows a mindset that is engaging and appealing to me in its sheer difference from my own attitudes.  I suppose it is perhaps possible that more elaborate fronts did exist but have managed to be sheltered from investigation.  For me, this doesn’t really fit with the philosophy of BMF.  It is also sad, but probably inevitable, that a crew whose motto was ‘Death Before Dishonour’ mainly ended up ratting on each other to get plea bargains.  Lastly, selling coke and crack, and the murders and violence that go along with it, are a deeply sad and depressing industry that ruin lives and, because of this, there’s no way of seeing BMF as a group of principled, Robin Hood-esque outlaws.  Rather, they were a remarkably successful group of audacious, flashy, rap and money loving egotists whose attitudes and exploits provided the blueprint for a generation of rappers whose idolisation was, intriguingly, reciprocated by the gangsters themselves.

Frederico Garcia Lorca - Three Plays

Before I write about each of the plays in turn.  There are some general themes that arise from the trio.  First, and most powerful, is the feeling of oppression and violence that emanates from Lorca’s depiction of society.  People are forced to do things they hate, marry people they don’t love and live miserable lives all for the sake of societal convention and ‘honour’.  All three plays contain lovers deemed illicit by society; in “Blood Wedding” the bride cannot be with her true love as he is too poor to marry her, in “Yerma” the eponymous woman was married too young to realise what she was doing and in “Casa De Bernarda Alba” the cause is monetary again.  Juxtaposed to this is a theme of true love and it’s all encompassing power.  It described more than once as a rope, which pulls those under its power in ways they are powerless to resist. In all three plays, the power of this love eventually leads to death, which illustrates Lorca’s point as dramatically as possible!

There is further social comment on the rigid roles expected of men and women.  All three plays seem to highlight the terrible oppression suffered by women in this age; confined to their houses, in the interests of decency and appearances, and only permitted to look after the men and produce children.  Bernada Alba and her daughters, the mother in Blood Wedding and the protagonist in Yerma are all examples of the terrible results of this oppression.  It’s less clear to me if there is also a condemnation of the behaviour of men.  Both men and women cheat on their families in these plays so the dishonesty isn’t confined to one sex.  Nonetheless, two of the male protagonists do cheat on their wives or fiances so perhaps men are being portrayed as the more dishonest and the weaker of the sexes.  There is some comment on men's’ predilection for prostitutes too but it isn’t harsh.  I feel like the criticism is aimed at society as a whole, perpetuating unimaginably repressive stereotypes, which, in turn, make everybody miserable.  However, in a male dominated society I suppose there must be some criticism of men as the primary culprits in its continuation, although, Bernarda Alba is a fine example of a woman who does a huge amount to perpetuate it.  There is also some criticism of differences between rich and poor but this seems secondary to the criticism of people being forced to repress their true feelings.  However, when La Poncia says, “all we’ve got is our hands to work with and a hole to be buried in” in “Casa de Bernarda Alba” I felt a pang of empathy for her miserable life.

Alongside this apparent criticism of tyrannical society sits a seeming reverence for certain traditions, nature and the natural forces in life.  Each of the three plays contains a symbolic or metaphorical section; in Blood Wedding we have ‘The Moon’ and ‘Death’ disguised as a beggar woman, in Yerma the fertility ceremony involving the bull and the cow and in Casa de Bernada Alba the mad grandmother who seems to be an example of the wise fool as in King Lear.  As such, I found a stinging criticism of tradition and societal norms sitting beside an endorsement of nature and natural feelings as experienced by feelings, emotions and desires.  The character of La Poncia in Casa Bernarda Alba seemed to embody this for me and is simultaneously full of folkloric wisdom while not being prudish or despotic in its application.

The importance of nature and the closeness Lorca felt to it in his rural life near Granada are also apparent in the text.  I’m really glad I read these plays in Granada as they are rooted in this landscape and culture in a way I could still feel today.  The palette of biscuit coloured browns, striking blues and brilliant whites is immediately identifiable.  The Andalucian summer sun is brilliantly described as, “heavy as lead”.  There are also countless similes and metaphors that point towards a life lived at far closer proximity to nature than most modern urban dwellers.  Features drawn from the observation of corpses like ‘yellow lips’ and ‘tongues full of ants’ and stories of sows eating babies show a rural life entirely alien to me.  Indeed, in Blood Wedding, the ‘Father’ and ‘Mother’ discuss the prospect of grandchildren like farmers discussing livestock including the choice phrase, “my son will cover her well.  He has good seed”!  The ‘Mother’ wants girls to do the embroidering, the Father boys to work the land for free.  I was reminded of a conversation I had with a friend's aunt near Granada when she bemoaned the fact her brother didn’t marry an ex-girlfriend who, “knew how to kill a pig and make something from every part of it”! I feel like there is still proximity to the rural way of life portrayed in these plays.  Albeit within a far more open and liberal society.  

All plays feature songs or poems that are presented in the manner of an oral tradition.  Even though they didn’t speak to me, I feel they are more evidence of Lorca’s connection to a specific place as a writer.  They also represent another perspective on the past and the role of tradition in society.  To me, they seem to draw a connection between the current events and those that have happened in the past.  Demonstrating that major themes of human life are constant and unchanging.  I couldn’t really connect with these in the same way as the descriptions of the landscape or, in a much more remote way, the customs of the local people.  My British cultural background is surely one part of the problem.  While the translator does a great job, invoking some Scottish phrases, they simply don't have the same significance for me nor are they as euphonic as I suspect they are in Spanish.  Reading them in Spanish is certainly a project for next year!

My major criticism of the plays is their portrayal of unending misery and wretchedness.  Everyone is unhappy, often with good reason, and cheats, lies and behaves dishonourably.  There are few, if any, examples of pure love or enjoyment.  Everything is sullied by deception or oppression.  While this has the advantage of creating a very vivid impression it also makes it seem like Lorca thought everyone was dishonest or vindictive and that the world was only full of unhappiness.  Doubtless, Lorca wanted to do this to prove a point about the society he was living in but after three plays worth of total depression I found myself wondering why he couldn’t find space for even the slightest celebration of the joys of life or a good, honourable and, most importantly, happy person.  Perhaps it is because most pleasure is fleeting while sin occupies a far more permanent position within the human condition.  Whatever the case, I found it unrelenting!   

BLOOD WEDDING

The play has a minimalist feel.  The plot is simple and the characters’ personalities don’t play a central role.  Far more central is the importance of existing customs and the primacy of tradition.  Many of the characters are given generic names like ‘Mother’ or ‘Bride-To-Be’ perhaps to reinforce this subservience of the individual to the family or community.  Sometimes, this can be a bit confusing when you have ‘Mother’ (the mother of the groom) and ‘Father’ (the father of the bride) interacting in the same scene!  On the whole I liked the simplicity of the plot; a prelude to the wedding as viewed from the respective families, the introduction of the bride’s illicit love, the wedding itself, the disappearance of the bride and her lover, their pursuit and the death of both men followed by the bride offering herself to the mother to be killed.  It was exciting.  However, there was a heavy, depressing quality to the whole story.

The Mother is grieving for her murdered husband and son.  Sadness and bitterness appear to have inundated her life and she holds that life is nothing but suffering saying at one point, “As long as one lives, one is always at war”  Her son is to be married to the daughter of a local farmer and she is paranoid about how suitable she is as a match.  This turns out to be justified when she runs off with her former lover, who was too poor to marry her and married her cousin instead.  There are some beautiful metaphors in the style of observations taken from a life lived in close proximity to nature.  One of my favourites was, “their eyes are broken flowers.  And their teeth two fistfuls of frozen snow.”  As with all three of the plays, the songs and poems didn’t translate particularly well.  I wasn’t sure I liked the allegorical sections involving the Moon and Death.  

On the whole it was quite enjoyable.  It made a lot out of its short, simple storyline and was exciting to read.  The Bride-to-Be’s actions are fairly inexplicable, an ill-conceived, and ill-fated, escape from her wedding followed by an attempt to get her mother-in-law to kill her.  Unless we believe in the all encompassing power of love that Lorca refers to in all three plays.  Looked at from this perspective, it quickly becomes the society that is insane rather than the Bride-to-Be and this theme recurs throughout the other plays.  

YERMA

Yerma’s longing for a baby is claustrophobic and harrowing.  It’s unclear if giving birth is associated with nature, and therefore treated positively by Lorca, or if insistence on women giving birth is seen as imposed by society and therefore negative.  I’m very much inclined to think that it is the latter.  The nameless ‘Girl 2’ who talks to Yerma in the fields supports this view and seems highly critical of society’s role in governing personal relationships.  “I’m nineteen years old and I hate cooking and washing. But that’s what I’ve got to do all day. Things I hate doing. And why? Why does my husband need to be my husband? We do exactly the same things we used to do before we got married. It’s just old people’s silliness”.  She concedes that everyone will see her as “mad” but that she doesn’t want to get married and concludes that it ensures, “that the whole world is stuck in their houses doing things they hate doing.”  For whatever reason I feel like I hear Lorca’s voice more clearly in her words than the other characters although I may be mistaken and her views are being presented as young and mistaken!

Throughout the story various explanations are offered for why Yerma, who is ostensibly fit and healthy, can’t conceive.  One is that she doesn’t love her husband and this is true.  Yerma is in love with another man who she talks to briefly during the play and fantasises about.  Here there is an obvious and quite violent attack on the practice of getting married before having had any experience of relationships.  Yerma says, “Girls like me, girls who grow up in the country . . . all the doors are shut and bolted shut in our face. It’s all words left only half-spoken, gestures only half-made, because these are all things that you’re just not supposed to know . . . And you too, you keep quiet too, and then off you go looking like you know, like you know the answer to everything, but won’t say it, won’t tell me, even though you know I am dying of thirst.”  This criticism seems similar to Blood Wedding and entirely sensible and justified to me.  

There is a lot of nonsense talked about childbirth and the reasons for conception in the play but this seems to be aimed at illustrating the gossiping and credulous society that produces it.  One further reading could relate to the role of religion in society.  During her search to get pregnant, Yerma encounters a pagan women who tells her that she needs to concieve with a man she loves.  While this advice is probably of dubious empirical or biological value, one feels at bottom it is probably sound.  On the other hand, the old Christian women she consults with has her performing magic rituals in the middle of the night and paying her bushels of wheat! I relate this to Lorca’s criticism of society’s blind conformity with tradition, and the church’s role within that, and his possible endorsement of more ‘natural’ ways of living although I accept this interpretation may be a little speculative.

Towards the end of the play, I found myself asking if Yerma is mad for wanting children so much.  The atmosphere in her house becomes totally toxic when her husband’s two sisters move in and perhaps it is this that drives her into a frenzy more than the absence of a child.  Generally speaking, her marriage is miserable, she doesn’t love her husband and he knows this.  However, while he seems content to occupy himself with his business and is simply happy to avoid public scandal she dreams of a different life with another man she loves.

I found this play to be more intense in its claustrophobia and misery than “Blood Wedding”.  There’s more dialogue, the play itself is longer and the characters are deeper and more complex. Nonetheless, finally the same theme of overpowering love leading to death dominates albeit in a slightly altered format.  Yerma seems to choose the sin of murder over that of adultery when she kills her husband in a fit of rage after he reveals he doesn’t want children.  

CASA BERNARDA ALBA

The protagonist is horrible!  She enforces all the oppression of her age by not permitting any of her daughters to leave the house for 8 years after the death of her husband.  A charitable interpretation of this situation would invoke her grief but it quickly becomes apparent she has a sadistic love of being puritanical.  The consequence is that all her four daughters become extremely sexually frustrated and things deteriorate further when a man does come into the equation.  She is also a despicable hypocrite, which makes her especially detestable.  She claims to hate gossip but is an inveterate gossip herself.  She spreads toxicity all around and it’s so unpleasant you really can’t forgive her even though her husband has died.  The three plays form a crescendo of misery, increasing in detail and volume to this shrill finale.  It really is a masterpiece of misery and I was not at all surprised to learn from my Spanish friend that they say “Casa Bernarda Alba” for a situation where everything is completely fucked!  In fairness to Lorca, who I’ve criticised earlier for being all doom and gloom, some of her pronouncements are quite amusing in their ludicrous severity.  For example, “The only man women should look at in church is the priest. And only because he wears a skirt. To look at any other man is to act like a bitch on heat.”  However, it really is only momentary relief as you’re quickly bludgeoned into distress by her tyranny with her daughters. Not to mention far crueler pronouncements like, “I’m not concerned with feelings. What people feel is their own affair. What matters is the way things look” and “If you should be happy then you are happy. They are one and the same.”  She is the very embodiment of the societal repression that ‘Girl 2’ speaks so eloquently against and against which all three plays speak strongly.  The scene where she bays for the blood of a mother who has had an illegitimate child and killed it for fear of the repercussions is truly dreadful.  It cements the idea of a person, and probably a society too, so wrapped up in misery and anger that it’s only pleasure can be exacting punishment on those who dare to follow nature and ignore the societal laws that are making them all miserable.

La Poncia is a great character and my favourite from these three plays.  She is worldly and I think it is mentioned  she is a prostitute’s daughter in conversation with Bernarda.  As such, she is sure to be classified as ‘dishonourable’ or ‘undignified’ although all her actions in the play show her to be quite the opposite.  She is a servant in Bernarda’s house and is subjected to all kinds of humiliation and cruelness.  Despite all this abuse, she is very wise and tries to warn Bernarda about the lethal situation developing amongst her daughters.  Bernarda cruelly dismisses her kind advice as jealous gossip.  It is in La Poncia’s mouth we find the best diagnosis of the play’s myriad woes, “They are women without men, that’s all. And when it comes to sex, everything else gets swept away.”  The crazy grandmother, who is locked in her room most of the time, also speaks in a prophetic or metaphorical way.  However, La Poncia’s advice is far less poetic and far more practical.  Perhaps more akin to the Pagan women in “Yerma”.  In any case, because she depicted as a sage it is interesting to find her as an apologist for men’s voracious sexual appetites.  This may be due to her mother’s profession but it is surprising to hear her say, “He can’t control himself. He’s only a man.” of the man who proposes to the eldest, ugliest and richest daughter while sleeping with the youngest and prettiest.  Better still she says, “I gave my son money to go with her [a prostitute]. Men need these things.” I’m not sure how to take this as Lorca doesn’t seem to be very sexist in the rest of his writing.  It may simply be that he wanted La Poncia to be an authentic character with views of the age and I have over interpreted her role as a truth teller in the play.  

In the end, death inevitably comes and, as with the misery in the house, it’s worse than in the other two plays.  At a higher pitch and volume.  The deadly squabbling between the siblings is already worse for being within a family.  Yet furthermore, it seems to take on an even darker hue because it has been incubated by their mother and would probably not have happened if not for her vindictive, sadistic and superficial approach to life.  When Adela, the youngest daughter, says, “and I’ll gladly wear my crown of thorns.” before committing suicide I’m not sure if we’re supposed to think of her as Christ-like.  She is certainly portrayed as being truly in love and this could be interpreted as the greatest celebration of God if ‘God is Love’.  However, Bernarda’s obsession with burying her as a virgin, despite the fact it seems fairly obvious she has slept with Pepe, shows religion as having an entirely opposing view of this kind of love!  This was the best of the three plays and I enjoyed them all but wasn’t blown away by any of them.

 

     

AA Gill - Pour Me: A Life

The last time I read any AA Gill, I was a prepubescent leafing through my parent’s copy of The Sunday Times. I remember being impressed by the acerbity.  Now, some 20 years later, the sheer acidity of his prose fails to cover his other stylistic woes.  George Orwell, who Gill inexplicably claims to have had a “titanic crush” on at school, tells us, “good prose is like a windowpane” in his essay Why I Write.  Gill describes, “glazed windows with curtains, behind which is painted a Home Counties landscape” in one of the dive bars he used to drink in.  This is an apt description of his prose although he’s also scrawled ‘Look at me! I’m so clever’ across the glass.  Arcane words litter the text but fail to add much to the general meaning leaving the impression they’re only there to show you how much he knows.  I looked up ‘octorate’, apparently how spider’s move, on google to no avail. He’s also loquacious and floral but in a self-satisfied way that brings little extra satisfaction to the reader.  For example, “they hate it and rant at the propinquity, rage against the intimacy” repeats the same idea two, if not three, times and it seems Gill will never use one convoluted, unclear phrase or word where three or four would suffice.  The most farcical example of this is the following, written in praise of omission:

“writing is the art of editing, each of these words is the result of a decision not to utilise, call on, pick, substitute, designate, suffer, frog-march, choose other words”

It reads like he’s copied and pasted from a list of synonyms!  Other phrases are ludicrously highfalutin; the remnants of a dinner party left to decay are described as, “the corruption of earthly vanity and fleshly lust”. All without apparent irony!  There are also some outright mistakes; “ossuaries of bones” is tautological, “actuary accounting” should be “actuarial”.  At other points, this 60 year old man writes like a 16 year old referencing “cranking”, “barfing” and saying “they’re on it. They’re doing shit”.  It might be faintly amusing and help to appeal to younger readers in a 500 word piece about a restaurant but in a longer, allegedly more reflective, format it’s clunky.  It’s populist, shock-jock prose that sits awkwardly with his attempts at a more refined, less colour-supplement journalistic style.  Metaphors are mixed and muddled.  Tears ‘swim’ down his cheeks, but swimming is something that takes place in water not something water does.  There is ‘an attempt to reconstruct, resurrect the boat that is going the other way’ but if it’s going in any direction then presumably it can’t be resurrected as it’s still afloat!  He either wants to turn it around or dredge it up from the ocean floor but not both at the same time while chucking in ‘reconstruct’ for good measure.   I’m still wondering what phrases like, “they are pre-National Health, a quaint black-and-white starched wimple rectal thermometer condition”, used in reference to DT, or “the wilful extravagance of a tissue-paper basement bohemianism” actually mean other than being a collection of words the author loosely associates with the concept he’s trying to express.  The tone is mean and sneering.  In the first chapter alone, we contend with references to ‘dagoes’ and ‘randy fat girl[s]’ but at least these are comprehensible.   He’s also snobbish, name dropping his quasi-famous society mates and bemoaning that alcoholism and LSD aren’t what they used to be. I find this fecklessness amazing for a former addict and suspect he’s faking it at some level.  He tells tall tales about his pathetic exploits as a drunk with a kind of pride makes me wonder if he’s learned anything except to stop drinking.  Gill is the consummate attention seeker; seemingly both in prose and life.  

Stylistic gripes aside, I found it really hard to work out what’s going on chronologically in the first chapter.  There seems to be almost no structure amidst the sneering, the showing off and the confusing metaphors.  It’s like he wrote it as a stream of consciousness.  We start off and Gill’s in rehab.  He’s thirty and he’s talking about some exercise they do in rehab about being adrift at sea and making choices about getting back to land.  So far, so comprehensible.  However, he then goes on to say that 27 years later he realised he made the wrong choice.  As such, I’m thinking he is 57 when he realises this.  However, later on he says the book will cover the period between his time and rehab and the end of his marriage, which is between six and eighteen months.  Incidentally, this turns out to be totally untrue; the book seems to cover almost all parts of his life apart from this period.  It seems he gets divorced first, then stops drinking in rehab a year or so later.  So what of the 27 years?  We can only presume that he is NOW 27 years removed from the time when he chose to get married and that the choice to get married is the ‘choice’ he is talking about and not the choice he was confronted with in rehab.  Perhaps this sort of vagueness is supposed to pique the reader’s interest but I found it unclear and annoying.  It’s like he’s remembered the incident from rehab and written about it but then made only the vaguest attempt to connect it to the rest of the chapter.  Sadly, unconnected and rambling rants are all too common throughout the book.

We continue in this higgledy-piggledy way through a hodge-podge of half-baked philosophical observations, autobiographical remembrances and miscellania. All suffused with the ambience of a recalcitrant schoolboy dashing off an essay before a deadline.  It’s as if Gill believes he’s so clever and his life so interesting that anything he says will be worthwhile. So what’s the point of thinking about what’s being said or giving it a structure?  Of course, structure isn’t essential. The real problem is the material, the observations are commonplace but presented in such a smug, self-congratulatory way it’s a nauseating.

The book does improve from the truly shocking start.  There are more interesting, and comprehensible, sections on him studying art while at the Slade, a brief history of his family going back two generations and a dissertation on cooking.  However, all read like individual essays inserted into the broader stream of consciousness and all suffer from his ‘why use one word when I know fifteen’ approach to writing.  None are explicitly linked to the stated subject matter of the book; namely, addiction except for the therapeutic qualities of cooking in his family.  Coupled with the insufferable style and propensity to pontificate on subjects well outside his expertise using the same tone of arrogant assertion, it doesn’t amount to good prose.  In general, he reminds me a bit of Jeremy Clarkson.  He knows about his specialist subject but expresses his knowledge in such a mean spirited way.  Both are intelligent and capable of making interesting points but insist on playing the class clown.  It’s lowest common denominator stuff; sexism, wild exaggeration, oversimplification of complex issues, racism, xenophobia, outlandish stories, arrogance, name dropping and unsubstantiated opinions presented as facts.  Both should really be above such carry-on but are egged on by the class.  As the comedian Stuart Lee puts it so unforgettably, “with his outrageous politically incorrect opinions which he has every week to a deadline in The Sunday Times for money”.  Anyone wondering why it is so unacceptable for intelligent, privileged people with a public platform to behave like this should watch this part of his stand up routine! I haven’t read any Clarkson since I was about 12 either so perhaps he’s changed, but I very much doubt it.  I was most amused when Gill reveals the two are friends, a fine match in my opinion.  

Gill also seems fixated on portraying himself as close to penniless throughout the book but doesn’t seem to think it contradictory to mention his expensive education, flats on High Street Kensington, not working and drinking non-stop which all clearly contradict this narrative.  I’m not saying they were filthy rich but the idea of him, his father and his brother ‘pooling 30 francs’ to bet on a horse at Longchamp because they had ‘run out of money’ is plainly a ridiculous fabrication.  His father was a very successful television producer and director and many parts of the book point to the family’s occupation of fairly elevated social strata.  However, as with the outrageous politically incorrect views, Gill must show off and exaggerate at all costs!  He also tries to simultaneously claim he is middle class while also working at Tatler, which even he admits is solely for good looking people with trust funds.  While his family could be described as upper middle class, it’s clear from the contents of this book, and his job at Tatler, that he is a SERIOUS social climber.  His good looks and natural affinity for being a snob probably helped considerably in this regard.

For a brief moment, around Chapter 10, Gill does actually talk about addiction before moving on to more worthy topics like how wonderful he is at journalism, how funny he is and how really it critics who are the lifeblood of the world and facilitate all progress in it.  What he says is, for me, far too broad and inauthentic.  It’s a sort of caricature of addiction for those who know nothing about it but are interested in it in a sort voyeuristic way.  Addicts are this, addicts aren’t this, addicts do this, but addicts don’t do that.  It’s as if every single addict were exactly the same and he has knowledge of the whole field because he was once a degenerate with a couple of war stories; most of which sound heavily embellished.  He asserts that no addict indulges in self-pity, which is far too general to be meaningful.  Of course people feel sorry for themselves, often with good reason, and an addict is no different.  He might not feel pity for himself over his addiction, which often has physical and psychological aspects that are hard to overcome, but to assert that it plays no role is simply too broad a statement.  In the same vein, we are told “living sober is nothing like as heroically gritty as trying to live stoned and drunk”.  Again, that depends on the person, the circumstances and a thousand other variables that Gill doesn’t care to examine.  He even goes so far as to say he doesn’t mind if his children take heroin because, “I know what to do about heroin”.  It’s hard to express the arrogance and stupidity of this sentence.  However, it’s all of a piece; what he wants to do is write something that will shock the non-addict, something at odds with their middle class, Sunday Times view of the world.  By turns this can be talking about shitting yourself or claiming heroism for the addict or saying taking heroin is OK.  It doesn’t matter, as long as sufficient shock is produced and he’s the centre of attention.  It’s tiresome, much like the prose.  The exact same motivation lies behind all Gill’s outpourings; he’s showing off and acting for the crowd.  

This book doesn’t examine addiction in any detailed or meaningful way.  I also suspect it doesn’t really reveal much about Gill’s life.  It reads like 100 frivolous pieces for some weekend supplement of the Sunday Times vaguely joined together. He flits from subject to subject telling tall tales and making jokes.  The only unifying theme is the desire to shock, to impress, to seem clever or controversial.  He thinks he’s hilarious, and even writes as much, but I didn’t even smile once during this book.  A consummate show off, he’s always making outlandish claims and trying to show that what others find complicated is comprehensible to him by virtue of his wit and irreverence.  He glamorises his addiction and rarely writes about the terrible effects it must have had on those around him.  He comes off as a mean, snobbish, arrogant and unpleasant man with a huge ego and far too high an opinion of himself, his views and his exploits, which he admits he largely can’t remember and has probably largely invented.  Those hoping for a honest examination of addiction should look elsewhere as this is just a few stories about addiction coupled with a load of sundry material on how great he thinks he is.  I had most empathy with the Scandinavian guide who told him, “You’re a cunt”!  Just like the glazed pane with the fake Home Counties scenery behind it; Gill shows us a mish mash of fabricated stories through the grubby window of his pretentious prose.