Scratch

Here you will find older scratches, musings and other detritus that once were located on the front pages, but have now faded.

Filed away here to collect dust and cobwwwebs in perpetuity, links may break, facts may change and data may corrupt.

On occasion I may come down here to tidy, but for the most, I prefer to leave the past where it lies.

 

Speak For England

James Hawes

Brian Marley, a divorced Englishman, is alone in the vilest jungle on earth, about to die live on television. A contestant on Brit Pluck, Green Hell, Two Million, the ultimate reality TV show, Marley has managed to outlive his rivals and win enough money to change his life. Except that the TV crew has just been wiped out in a helicopter crash. With the crocodiles closing in, he has no option but to climb the vast cliff at his back. Inevitably, he falls...

...And awakes in a lost world that is remarkably like an Englishman's heaven. There's cricket and rugger, the Union Jack, plucky boys, pretty girls, a tough but fair headmaster – an entire miniature civilization preserved by the surviving passengers from Comet IV, which vanished in 1958. Firmly convinced that they were the first casualties of World War III, they have kept an idyllic, pre-sixties England alive. When Brian contacts the outside world, the headmaster is outraged to find an embattled New Labour PM unchallened by a hapless Tory Party. With '50s conviction, he sets about restoring the values of the Eagle to England.

James Hawes is a writer I have always enjoyed reading. Like his previous books, there are highs and lows, as he delivers social commentary wrapped up within black humour, which makes it easily read, mainly because its true. Occasionally this slows the plot but for the most, its a fair trade off.

8 Oct 2006 12:01 | (0) comments | Books

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