Seymore Butts :: Putting the Anal in Banal

About a month ago I received an interesting email, apropos of nothing, from a lady at Penguin – the publishers, not the wacky dildo people. She said she wanted to share a book with you, my discerning readers. She said she knew you’d love it. It was about sex. Everybody loves sex. So she sent it to me, hoping I’d devour it with alacrity and urge you all, with all of my heart, to rush out and buy it for Christmas. And I tried. Believe me, I spent hours trying to write a glowing review with a none-too subtle sardonic undertone, but it didn’t work. The fact is, this book is such a rancid, horrible mess that I couldn’t even pretend to like it. In actual fact, if I’m completely honest, I think Rock Her World by Seymore Butts is probably the worst book I’ve ever read - and remember, I’ve read both Jeffrey Archer and Dan Brown. So, with apologies to Jenny Chun of Penguin, who I’m sure was just doing her job and is actually unutterably lovely, I forbid you, my discerning readers, I forbid you to buy this odious mound of literary effluent. Really. The man makes Chris Moyles look like Vladimir Nabokov. (Don’t buy Chris Moyles either. VERBOTEN!) Now, it’s safe to say that certain groups of people have a poor reputation for intellectual prowess. Models, for example. Football players, for another. Toilet attendants, boxers, BNP voters, people who work in Argos. And, of course, porn stars. Now I don’t know if Seymore Butts is considered a cerebral giant in the world of porn, but let me tell you, when he isn’t ball-deep in stretched rectum, or else pointing a camera at someone who is, Seymore Butts is a moron. And I neither use this term lightly, nor mean it as an insult. What I mean is that, having studied Butts and the language he uses to convey his ideas, I have concluded that he has the mental age of someone aged between 8 and 12 years old, and therefore, according to the original medical classification, he is, unequivocally, a moron. And that is nothing to be ashamed of. At least he’s not an imbecile. But should Penguin really be paying him good money to write horrible, rancid books? I’m not so sure. ‘This isn’t your ordinary book,’ says Butts at the offset. Of course, he’s flattering himself. This is barely a book at all. It’s more like a soiled bib around the neck of a retarded sex pest.

For the rest of this remarkable review, Stan recommends you go here and purchase a copy of The Little Book of Shame. Not only does it contain the article you're currently reading, it also contains around 50 others, and all for the incredible price of whatever price it happens to be at the moment. You lucky thing you. 

Dan Brown :: A Clarification

In my last blog post I gave an account of a recent conversation I had with a shop assistant in a branch of WH Smith. The post gave rise to some stinging controversy in the comments, which on reflection, I thought I’d better address. So, in the name of full disclosure, I feel I should point out at this stage that the account of the conversation I provided last week was not a particularly accurate one. A more accurate version follows here:

Me :: [Handing over a card with the meerkat on it which I was buying for my grandmother, who likes meerkats] Just that please.

Lady :: Are you interested in half price Dan Brown today?

Me :: I’m sorry?

Lady :: You can order Dan Brown’s latest book for half price.

Me: Wow. No, I’m alright actually. And do you have to ask everybody that?

Lady: Aye. Sometime it’s Dan Brown, sometimes it’s half-price chocolates.

Me: Ha! Well, good day to you, Ma’am.

Lady: Good day to you, sir. Do come again!

Sorry if I misled anyone with my slightly doctored version below. It was never my intention to hoodwink or disconcert. I guess I was trying to be funny or something. Please accept my sincere apologies.

In other news, I am in my super spacious new room in London and today - because I think it will do me good - I started reading The Da Vinci Code. At the moment I'm only two chapters in, but I must say, it really is eminently readable.

Oh Oh Oh I Got the Dan Brown Blues

So this morning I had the following conversation with a young lady who works in WH Smith.

Me :: [Handing over a card with the meerkat on it which I was buying for my grandmother, who likes meerkats] Just that please.

Lady :: Are you interested in half price Dan Brown today?

Me :: I’m sorry?

Lady :: You can order Dan Brown’s latest book for half price.

Me :: Um, no, thanks. Do I look like a simpleton?

Lady :: Eh?

Me :: No, I was just wondering – do I look like a simpleton? You know, an imbecile.

Lady :: [Not sure] Erm… it’s half price. It’s a promotion.

Me :: The reason I ask, incidentally, is not because I’d necessarily have to be a simpleton to read a Dan Brown book, although…. [waiting in vain for some recognition of a shared sense of intellectual snobbery before giving up and continuing] No, it’s just that, if I did want to buy Dan Brown’s latest book, I’d probably already be aware of the fact. Without being prompted. Don’t you think?

Lady :: We ask everybody.

Me :: Well, I wish you wouldn’t.

Lady :: But we ask everybody.

Me :: Yeah, I’ve gathered that. You ask everybody. Great. It’s just that it doesn’t seem fair to me, you know? I mean, there’s my book, for example, a gorgeous, funny, moving little memoir that no one’s ever heard of, struggling for breath, slowly drowning in a sea of suffocating, interminable dross, and there’s Dan Brown’s latest congregation of moronisms, which has, if memory serves me well, an initial print run of 6.5 million copies – 6.5 million copies which will fly off the shelves like hot cakes in cold climate – and despite this already assured best seller status, WH Smith are making every effort to ram it down the throats of customers who don’t even want it. Two weeks before it comes out and it’s already the literary equivalent of McDonald’s fries. You know? ‘Do you want fries with that?’ Erm, no, thanks. If I’d wanted waxy strips of tasteless toxic spew with my order, I’m pretty sure I would’ve asked for them. Similarly, if I wanted to spend ten pounds on nearly 500 pages of poorly-constructed toilet paper, you would probably have known about it by now. Do you know what I’m trying to say?

Unfortunately, she was serving someone else by then.

Oh, Dan Brown.

How I hate you.