This is one of the wackier books I’ve seen published by a corporate press in recent years. It is a mix of memoir, north of London local history and drug-fucked fantasy. It comes across as the written equivalent of a Godfrey Ho movie where various elements are cut together with a total disregard for narrative and logical sense. Does the Godfrey Ho school of exploitation film-making work on the written page? Well if you wanna know the answer you could do worse than check out Scarp. My favourite line: “And the entire suburb is a groove sensation, a humming colony lit deep in ancient woodland.

Once your book collection runs into double figures it takes up too much space and due to its weight is a drag to cart it around if you move! Most books aren’t worth the paper they are printed on! Plastic bottles filled with liquid make for better improvised weights than books. With bottles you can add water or pour it out to adjust the weight; and they are a much better shape (fairly close to a dumbbell) for working out with! Printed books are so last century and having a collection of them makes you even sadder than a vinyl fetishist!

Barbaric Genius is a documentary about John Healy who was born in London during World War II. Healy went on to be an army boxer, then a homeless street drinker and petty criminal before learning chess from a fellow con at the age of 30. After release from jail he became a chess champion and was particularly adept at playing multiple games simultaneously. Realising he’d learnt chess too late to become a grandmaster, Healy gave up the game and wrote an acclaimed autobiography The Grass Arena (1988). He fell out with his publishers Faber and Faber in the early nineties over nothing very much and his memoir was taken out of print in English.

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Elegantly – that’s with a massive advance from a production company or publisher and no audience! Spectacularly – as success slips from you’re fingers you realise that in a few moments you’ll be dead! Hypocritically – by being evil when your motto is ‘don’t be evil’! Hypothetically – that’s when your visualisations of your future success are so good you can’t be bothered with the actuality. Happily – by realising that you didn’t want a house in the Hollywood Hills or to be chased around by the paparazzi anyway. Secretly – since all success is relative and is ultimately an illusion.