Apparently Hornby (the sneaky little bastard) has been doing some sort of crazy book signing talky thing at a local book festival behind my back. I'm not really the jealous type, but I reckon he could have told me. Still, at least someone managed to make it, transforming my previous dream of 'a book' into a fully fledged reality. Wondersauce. And to top it all off, it's signed. Best wishes and everything. The signiture looks as if he's started to write his name then given up half way or been distracted by a pigeon. There's love there though, I can feel it. Almost as if he knows I've read two of his books. Sweet.
Anyway, The Complete Polysyllabic Spree is Hornby's reading diary or something, masquerading as weird-ass magazine publications. Either that or it actually is a collection of articlays. I may never know. However I have just checked wikipedia and turns out it really is. Kudos Hornby, kudos. It's a pretty good book anyway. The crux of it is, slag off biggots and appreciate books with enthusiasm and enjoyment. Read as a reader, not as a twat. Otherwise you'll put Hornby out of a job. A sound philosophy if ever I heard one.
His true talent of course, lies in speaking to you if you were actually there. Hence the best wishes thing. Straight from the heart. What spoke to me the most was the fact that he can't stand people who copy his style. People who say they write like he does. Book vampires that suck all the goodness out of his work and send it back to him in their own basatardised form finger by finger. Well guess what Hornby, your voice is mine and there's nothing you can do about it.
Of course, the one side effect that comes part and parcel with a great idea is that someone, somewhere wants to steal it. Today that person happens to be me. I've been looking for an excuse to blog for a while and here it is. Finally, to make my voice heard! Or at least available. You know, to those poor lost souls lurking in the darkest corners of the internet, hooked like crack addicts but unable to find anything apart from the half-coherant ramblings of delusional randoms. If you've guessed that I'm talking about you then you're bang on. If not I'm sure you're sharp anyway, because you're my audience and I love every last one of you. Because trust me, there is only one of you.
A reading diary! What an extravagently simple conception. Flantastic!
But there are problems.
The first of which being the fact that unlike Nicky-boy, I do not have a list of published books the length of my arm. Not even someone else's arm, like a really small one. So none of you are going to take me seriously! Which in a sense is also a good thing since I can say whatever I want without getting wrong. =D. See, Hornby can't even do that. He probably wouldn't know what it meant anyway. Snap.
As well as being the awesome underdog of this unfolding one-sided rivalry, I am also a student. What you just heard was the sound of browsers closing all over the world. If you're still here, you really ought to know that we students (including me) are for the most part bloodsucking scum that deserve to be expunged from this earth for real and for true. I encourage you to spit on me if you see me in the street. To make matters that little bit worse, I'm a literature student, which automatically makes me one of those sneering tossers that wipe their arse with caviar and detest the 'low folk' for not being cultured enough. I also murder plebian babies and feed them to my pet rapist, Winston. We're just going to have to look past those character flaws for now though, and hope I'm still infused with enough of Hornby's charm to get me by.
Third and final problem is the simplest of all. Money. Without money I can't buy books and without books I can't read. Without read I can't buy money and without money I can't eat books. The circle of life continues. I have paypal. You know what to do. Also, if this is breaking any copyrite or anything, knob off, its also free advertising.
