Private Eye Issue 1441 - Page 32

32 Issue 1441 Page 32 7 April 2017 compared to going for walks, doodling and accentuating the Literary Review positive.) It’s the “writing everything down” that and Big Brother for something is the giveaway here, Joy derision close to respectability. as it becomes apparent Fearne Cotton, who is now in that Cotton has taken Happy: Finding Joy her mid-30s, tried the cookbook self-help all too liter- in Every Day and last year, but her second book has ally – she has written higher ideals. Happy is basically this book in order to Letting Go of Perfect a celebrity mindfulness memoir, make herself feel better Fearne Cotton neatly combining the only three and to give herself (Orion Spring, £6.99) things in modern non-fiction something to do. ‘Death of the Poets’ publishing that sell any books. Happy cannot therefore Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts EARNE COTTON has been Naturally, one’s first thought escape the descrip- Fa TV and radio presenter is “What qualifies an expert on tion of a vanity project. Despite who imagines that he can sit for since she was 15, and her stock Busted to hold forth on a subject the fact that a lot of presumably Westminster and edit a London in trade has always been yoof. I kinda thought Aristotle had unhappy people have bought daily paper at the same time.” She came to the fore on Radio 1 covered?” But Fearne’s way ahead this book, no reader will enjoy with a brash, in yer face style that of you. Happy begins with an reading it anything like as much n MAKING a rare excursion into took up where the ladettes inspired switcheroo – young as its author enjoyed writing it. lit crit, Rod Liddle described of the nineties – Zoe Ball, Fearne, the Fearne from David Storey as “Britain’s greatest Sara Cox – left off. Stay Radio 1 whose celebrity post-war novelist” last week, in a up late, ‘ave it large, is supposed to make BOOKS & tribute on the Spectator website then tell everyone people go out and buy after Storey’s death was how uh-mazing it her book, was all a BOOKMEN announced. all was on the break- mistake. What she “For most people, though, he fast show the next calls her “fast-paced, n “MORSE was essentially a is probably best remembered as morning. incautious way of self-portrait,” wrote Christopher a playwright,” Liddle continued, But TV and radio living”, which you Stevens in the Daily Mail’s tribute “and particularly for This Sporting are cruel nurseries. In might say was also to the late Colin Dexter, creator Life – later a film with Rachel 2012 Cotton took the her selling point, was of the famous Oxford detective, Roberts, Richard Harris and the brunt of the criticism actually a façade. In fact, “with the emphasis on the peerless Alan Badel. And sure, for the BBC’s candyfloss while she was trilling her grumpy, depressive traits that it was a brilliant play and an coverage of the Diamond way through the chart show, Dexter’s had smoothed away even better film. But I think he Jubilee. The charge was that she mate, she was empty inside. She from his own personality.” surpassed all that with his novels, was the embodiment of dumbing realised she had become clinically Not smoothed away especially A Temporary Life, down, a flibbertigibbet far too depressed. completely, however, for there Flight into Camden and Saville.” frothy for real broadcasting. She doesn’t go so far as to say was still one subject that late in Which is odd, since the film of Suddenly the same youthful precisely when this was or what life was guaranteed to bring out This Sporting Life was not adapted enthusiasm that had made her brought it on, because her much- the grouch in Dexter. “I’d rather from “a brilliant play” but from flavour of the month rendered vaunted honesty, sharing etc, shoot Paul Dacre than anyone Storey’s, er, novel of that name. her almost instantly passé. only extends so far. But happily, else in the country,” the author Unabashed, Liddle added that It says much about our now she’s out the other side, with confessed to Radio Times in 2012. Storey’s fiction “always struck prevailing culture that men on bells on, and it’s uh-mazing. All more of a chord with me than TV can, just about, escape from her gentle readers have to do is n NEWS that George Osborne is did the McKewans and Amises”. this career cul-de-sac. Even follow a few simple steps and to edit the Evening Standard Are these “McKewans” by any if you make your name as a they too can follow the Fearnage provoked fierce debate over chance related to Ian McEwan? shouty man-child credibility to nirvana. And let’s face it, if that press freedom, conflicts of can be earned, slowly, through annoying DJ you half-remember interest and the former chancel- presenting a documentary or two can become a best-selling self-help lor’s greedy nature. So all praise LIBRARY NEWS on, say, BBC3. Maybe then you’ll guru, this shit must really work. to a reader Ernest Stanford, who n THE extremely tiny get an afternoon slot on Radio 5 Fearne’s prescription for bliss alerted the Eye to a simple way bounty from the Libraries and you can segue in to current is simple, if a little haphazard. to judge an MP’s character Taskforce’s £4m innova- affairs and a lasting career. Reggie Cooking, running, yoga, courtesy of Anthony Trollope’s tion fund has now been doled out Yates, for example, Cotton’s one- meditation, painting, having 1870s epic, The Way We Live Now. to libraries to support ideas that time partner on Radio 1, has just amazing kids, amazing friends, Chapter 64, “The Election”, are mostly fairly old-hat in the about pulled it off. an amazing husband, living in finds London publisher Mr library world. For women it’s much harder. the moment and a great deal Broune offering wise words Grants will support things like The options have always topped of writing everything down is on Ferdinand Alf, editor of the creative writing and arts projects, out at light entertainment, exer- the way to beat the blues. (She Evening Pulpit and a would-be digital gaming workshops and cise video, cookbook, or, more only mentions in passing that MP. “I shouldn’t think him such several new “makerspaces” recently, droning on about moth- what actually lifted her out of a fool if he had announced his (rooms with equipment such as erhood and giving your children depression in the first place was resignation of the editorship power tools or sewing machines). stupid names. Davina McCall is medication; thereafter chemi- when he came before the world Staffordshire, which recently the paragon: she has managed to cals and conventional medicine as a candidate for parliament,” slashed mobile libraries to save swap the early days of Streetmate are deemed inconsequential he said. “But a man must be mad £350,000, got £52,000 for a project working with pre-school children. Lincolnshire, which handed 35 branch libraries over to volunteers in 2015, got funds to run “techno labs” – IT skills classes for unemployed youngsters. And Sefton in Merseyside, which lost more than half its libraries in 2013, gets funds for a volunteer recruitment scheme, dubbed the “Human Library”, to encourage people to volunteer with adults with poor mental health. All very nice – but a miserable sop compared to what has been lost. Private Eye Issue 1441 - Page 32.

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