Clive James

I have always loved journalism. Recently I had to go to the bookshop as a cure for constipation. It worked, but only after I had chosen 3 books, and 2 of them are collections of journalism.

So I have been reading Clive James's A Point of View, and re-reading it, because it is so easy to pick up and read it quite at random, although I don't think I have missed anything. I used to read Clive James' collections of TV criticism over and over again and I loved his enjoyment of the small things, such as the way Harry Carpenter used to pronounce Wimbledon 'Wmbldn' with all the vowels missing, and the way all the knocked out British tennis players one by one made their way to the commentary box to give their pearls of wisdom to the BBC and how the commentary box must have become increasingly overcrowded, but I also loved Clive's willingness to be serious about the subjects which need to be treated seriously.

The great thing about Clive is his sense of the ridiculous. He really enjoys ridiculous things, especially if he feels justified in pointing out exactly how ridiculous they are. He feels like this about his own habit of writing about putting the wheelie bins out. He slightly can't get over the fact that such a great person as himself has to put the bin out for his wife, and he knows this is ridiculous, so he writes about it. If he writes with a sad note sometimes it is because, when he is gone, he will miss ridiculousness so much. In himself, and in everything else too.

The other collection of journalism was by Steve Jones. See blog entry here.