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I am reading
Ian Stone’s “To Be Someone” ahead of another Book Club interview. This book has been out for a little while and was published with Unbound - in fact I was one of the people who backed it, so that it would be printed. My name is part of a long list at the back, including a few other comedians. I am a fan of crowd funding, having used it pretty successfully over the years (I failed to raise a million pounds to build a self-playing snooker arena- though did get to over £100,000 - but otherwise I think all the others have hit their targets). It’s perhaps easy to think that anything that has to be funded in this way might not be as good as something commissioned by a publishing house or TV station and of course some things to turn out to be vanity projects (the kind of thing that someone trying to build a self-playing snooker arena might do) but others reveal why gate keepers can be a bad thing. It’s not easy to get a book published, but it seems a bit easier for the middle class people who have similar backgrounds to the middle class people working in publishing. Working class voices are less represented, so it’s great that Unbound exists.
Stone’s book is beautifully written and an important document of growing up in London in the 1970s and is particularly strong on stories of the casual and less casual racism that was hardly eve frowned upon back then, as well as being a universal story of awkward clueless teenager who seems unlikely ever to have sex. I grew up in the slightly less scary environs of Cheddar and I am a couple of years younger than Ian (though I listened to the same music), but the awkward cluelessness resonates as much as the racism shocks.
Stone was not academic at school - or at least not very interested and a little bit rebellious against the religion at the heart of the school he attended - but like most comedians he is clever and has a great command of language. So it’s an easy an enjoyable read.
Mostly though it serves as a reminder to anyone nostalgic about Britain’s past how terrible things were back then and how far we’ve come in many ways. Though those small-minded and unimaginative to hate people based on their race are still around, they are not socially acceptable in the way they were back then. You don’t have to be a Jam fan to enjoy it, though you will like it more if you are. As Paul Weller is quoted as saying , “I really liked this book. I’d forgotten how shit it was in the seventies.”
The kids were away until bed time, so we had a relaxing day and I watched the football results. York managed an away win and though they are clearly not the best team in their new division, they are holding their own and I am hopeful that they can scrape into the play-offs and then fluke a promotion. As long as they aren’t relegated I am relatively happy.
Spurs won 2-1, just like I predicted.
