No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy: Memoirs of a Working-Class Reader by Mark Hodkinson (Canongate 2022)

 

We had about four Caspers in my school class alone, lads from ‘broken’ homes dressed in hand-me-downs, not sure from where their next meal would come, dodging bullies, irate neighbours or members of their own family. These were shadow boys, a few yards behind the rest of us, unwilling to join in. They often played alone on the margins, down by the river near the chemical factory or on a piece of oily scrubland between the road and railway. Gerald Swanson was typical. We’d often ask him to join us but it was like trying to tame a feral cat; he didn’t trust us enough to draw close. He was always yawning and sometimes fell asleep in class, his forearm a pillow for his head. During the summer holidays we found him sleeping on a pallet near the canal, curled up tight. His face was mucky and looked to be tear-smeared.

‘Swanny.’

Gerald opened his eyes, blinked and scanned our faces. In an instant, he was off. He charged through the shrubs and bushes and was on the towpath within seconds.

‘What’s up with you? We’re not going to beat you up or owt.’

‘Fuck off,’ he yelled and jogged away.

Slow Horses: Dead Lions (2022)

 

The Jangling Man: The Martin Newell Story (2022)

 

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

 

Scrooged (1988)

 

On Days Like These: My Life in Football by Martin O'Neill (Macmillan 2022)

 

Within a few days I’m in residence above McKay’s Café, in a room – essentially a converted attic – with Seamus and another ten guys, much older than us, who rise much earlier than we do and arrive back at their digs much later than we do. They spend the night chatting about their respective jobs and at the weekend, if they don’t go back home, spend the early hours of the morning detailing their conquests of some hours before. Nottingham, I’m told early on, is a city with five girls to every fellow, so the chances of them getting hitched with someone, at least for the evening, are, I surmise, reasonably decent. Even so, I’m not convinced that their bawdy stories – told to each other at four o’clock on a Sunday morning – ring completely true. Some of these men have, in all honesty, not been introduced to a bar of soap in a week. So if these stories have a semblance of truth then Seamus and I feel that we must have a chance ourselves of finding a girlfriend, because we have not only washed, but also have a little aftershave to hand.

I have been at the club less than twenty-four hours. Bill Anderson, as he tends to do when under some stress, reaches for his breast pocket and produces an outsize handkerchief to wipe some beads of sweat from his brow. If my affair at the Henry Road landlord’s house is causing him to perspire, heaven knows what Saturday at White Hart Lane might do to him.

Regardless, he brings me into the reserve team dressing room and introduces me to the players. Most of these lads are my age, perhaps a year or eighteen months older, one or two are a little younger. In fact, John Robertson, almost a complete year younger than me, came on as a substitute last Saturday against Liverpool and may well start the game this coming weekend against Tottenham Hotspur.

Robertson is an interesting character. A young Scotsman from the outskirts of Glasgow, he has been at the club since he was fifteen years old. He is a very talented centre midfield player, with two really good feet, and can spray passes all over the pitch. Robertson is extremely well thought of at the club and a player of much promise. He is also extremely popular in this dressing room, despite the fact that he seems to have plenty to say for himself. All this I glean from my first fifteen minutes in the changing room on 21 October 1971. The introductions finished, Bill departs and I put on my Nottingham Forest training gear, with the number 10 sewn into the shirt and tracksuit. This will be my training number for the next decade. I am acutely self-conscious of the large birthmark over my right shoulder, and keep my back to the wall when disrobing. But they will spot it eventually after training when we jump into the communal bath adjacent to the dressing room. I suppose I will have to endure the almost endless ribbing I received from the Distillery players, who seemed to find continuous mirth at my expense.

Play For Today: Willie's Last Stand (1982)

 

Play For Today: A Sudden Wrench (1982)

 

Play For Today: A Gift From Nessus (1980)

 

Diego Maradona (2019)

 

Fergie Rises: How Britain's Greatest Football Manager Was Made At Aberdeen by Michael Grant (Aurum Press 2014)

 

Aberdeen made it back to the League Cup final, which was brought forward to December. The feeling in Scottish football was that they had done the hard part simply by reaching Hampden. They had won all four cup ties against Rangers and Celtic with an aggregate score of 9–3. Indeed, the quarter-final against Celtic at Pittodrie saw a demonstration of virtuoso finishing by Steve Archibald and evidence of how unpredictable and pragmatic Ferguson could be when wayward characters were useful to him. Archibald scored a hat-trick and defied Ferguson’s instructions by taking the match ball home as a souvenir. He was a strong character and a law unto himself, but he rubbed along with Ferguson even though the potential for conflict was never far from the surface. When Ferguson found out about the ball he called Archibald into his office and ordered him to return it. The following day he was sitting in the coaches’ room with Pat Stanton and Teddy Scott, drinking tea and chatting, when the door burst open. Archibald shouted: ‘There’s your fucking ball’ and booted it hard into the small room. The three of them ducked and spilled tea over the floor as it ricocheted around. Others would have been crucified, but no action was taken against Archibald. ‘That was Steve,’ said Ferguson.

Intelligent, strong-willed, capricious, and ambitious: the blond, tousle-haired Archibald shared many of the manager’s own characteristics. He turned up to moan about one thing or another so often that Ferguson said there was ‘an Archibald chair’ in his office. ‘Stevie liked to have his say and Fergie liked that about him,’ said Stanton. ‘He’d probably have done it himself when he was a player because he was volatile too. He recognised something of himself in Stevie. He didn’t want his players to be wee choirboys. Even when he was angry with Stevie he appreciated where he was coming from. They had respect for each other.’ Archibald also happened to be a dashing, reliable goalscorer with great instincts and reactions. He gave Aberdeen real menace.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016)

 

Fingers Crossed : How Music Saved Me from Success by Miki Berenyi (Nine Eight Books 2022)

 

At one of the Soho House soirées, while I order drinks from the bar, a drunk comedian slurs at me to either suck his cock or fuck off. As I stand chatting to friends, Alex from Blur is sprawled on the floor making ‘phwoarr’ noises and sinks his teeth into my arse. The Carry-On Sid James impersonations are a common theme. I fall into conversation with Keith Allen and try to ignore him sweeping his eyes around my body, twitching with overheating gestures and tugging at his collar to show he’s letting off steam. Another comedian sharing a cab ride for convenience suggests he come in for a bunk-up, despite having spent the entire night excitedly chatting about his imminent fatherhood. Liam Gallagher circles me, wondering aloud when I’ll be ready to fuck him in the toilets. Look, I know I’m hardly Mary Poppins, but this isn’t flirting, it’s harassment. It’s constant, relentless sexualisation. And there’s a nasty edge to it, implying that it’s me, not them, who is asking for it.

I recall Suzanne Vega once pointing out that Madonna may be breaking boundaries, but every teenage girl who dresses like her is still treated like a slut. I’m experiencing a similar uncomfortable side effect with the supposed androgyny of Britpop. While Justine from Elastica and Sonia from Echobelly and Louise from Sleeper, wearing ungendered suits or jeans and T-shirts, get treated as one of the boys, my long hair and short dresses are now a signal that I’m absolutely gagging for it. Sure, I could get a crop and stop wearing a skirt, but that’s no different to saying, ‘If you don’t want the grief, dress like a nun.’ I’ve been doing what I do for years and now I’m being reframed as happy to be objectified.

I’ve been reading feminist texts since college, however unfashionable that might be right now (and, to be fair, Chris has always found it a bit tiresome). My education, both at PNL and from the politicised bands I’ve followed, has taught me precisely to see through the ‘harmless fun’ to the misogyny that drives it. I’m not militant about it. I don’t crucify people for crossing a line, I just recognise there is one. And I need to know someone well enough to accept that they’re ‘just joking’; I’m not going to swallow it as a lame excuse from a bloke I’ve just met.

Early Doors (2003)

 

Why Me? by Donald E. Westlake (Mysterious Press 1983)

 

The back room at the O.J. looked like one of those paintings from the Russian Revolution—the storming of the Winter Palace—or, perhaps more appropriately, from the Revolution of the French: a Jacobin trial during the Terror. The place had never been so crowded, so smoky, so hot, so full of strife and contention. Tiny Bulcher and three assistant judges sat together on one side of the round card table, facing the door, with several other tough guys ranged behind them, on their feet, leaning against the stacked liquor cartons. A few more savage-looking types lurked to both sides. A couple of chairs had been left empty near the door, facing Tiny and the rest across the green felt table. Harsh illumination from the single hanging bare bulb with its tin reflector in the middle of the room washed out all subtlety of color, reducing the scene to the work of a genre painter with a poor palette, or perhaps a German silent film about Chicago gangsters. Menace and pitiless self-interest glinted on the planes of every face, the slouch of every shoulder, the bend of every knee, the sharpness of every eye, the slant of every smoldering cigarette. Everybody smoked, everybody  breathed, and—because it was hot in here—everybody sweated. Also, when there was no one being interviewed everybody talked at once, except when Tiny Bulcher wanted to make a general point, at which time he would thump the table with fist and forearm, bellow, “Shadap!” and insert a sentence into the resulting silence.

The Death of Stalin (2017)

 

Nobody’s Perfect by Donald E. Westlake (Mysterious Press 1977)

 

Tiny said to him, “You the driver?”

“The best,” Murch said, matter-of-factly.

“It was a driver got me sent up my last stretch,” Tiny said. “Took back roads around a roadblock, made a wrong turn, come up behind the roadblock, thought he was still in front of it. We blasted our way through, back into the search area.”

Murch looked sympathetic. “That’s tough,” he said.

“Fella named Sigmond. You know him?”

“I don’t believe so,” Murch said.

“Looked a little like you,” Tiny said.

“Is that right?”

“Before we got outa the car, when the cops surrounded us, I broke his neck. We all said it was whiplash from the sudden stop.”

Another little silence fell. Stan Murch sipped thoughtfully at his beer. Dortmunder took a mouthful of bourbon. Tiny Bulcher slugged down the rest of his vodka-and-red-wine. Then Murch nodded, slowly, as though coming to a conclusion about something. “Whiplash,” he commented. “Yeah, whiplash. That can be pretty mean.”

“So can I,” said Tiny, and the door opened again . . .