UNITED WE FALL: BOARDROOM TRUTHS ABOUT THE BEAUTIFUL GAME
Peter Ridsdale
£
18.99 Macmillan
“
Publicity Pete” Ridsdale faced a PR job that would have scared Max Clifford
silent when he decided to pen a defence of his five-year reign as Leeds chairman.
That he even dared to relive the expensive decisions which saw the modest Yorkshire
club soar to a Champions League semi-final before sliding back towards financial
meltdown and oblivion, was astonishingly brave for a man who has frequently
been covered in saliva because of the perceived consequences of his time in
charge. But then, as this fascinating book shows, the current Cardiff City
chairman has a lot to get off his chest. His principle point is both correct
and obvious to anyone who watches football and maintains an IQ in double figures:
namely, that Leeds’ disintegration was as much the fault of bad managers
and fellow board members as it was his over-spending. He also puts forward
a convincing argument against those claiming the club’s current problems – some
four years after he resigned in 2003 – are a knock-on effect of his mismanagement.
Along the way he unravels some popular myths about goldfish and the stresses
of running a football club, but makes few excuses for some of the undoubtedly
stupid decisions he made. In all, the result is a thought-provoking read for
those Cardiff fans adamant such a derided figure should not be allowed near
Ninian Park.
Richie McGowan
SHOOT THE PUPPY
Tony Thorne
£
9.99, Penguin
It might not be a cool thing to confess, but I’m a word nerd. Or to use
geek speak, I’m a logophile. In other words, someone who loves, well,
words, which is handy if you want to make your living as a wordsmith/hack but
doesn’t necessarily make for a dream date at parties. It’s a bit
of a shame really because language and its ever-shifting evolution is a fascinating
subject, especially at the moment due to the sheer rate of linguistic change
with creative words and phrases sprouting up all over the shop. Hence this
compendium which corrals together some of the more bleeding-edge metaphors,
slang and acronyms currently infiltrating our vocabs. Predictably, management-speak
offers up many of the most bizarrely inventive: ‘shoot the puppy’ is
to do what no one else in the office has the courage to; an ‘open-kimono
philosophy’ makes protestations of corporate honesty sound sexy.
If all this sounds too dorkishly boring, the brilliance of the book is that
it makes language and all its eccentric kinks and quirks accessible, interesting
and, most importantly, fun, primarily because it doesn’t take itself
too seriously. Acronyms probably provide the most fertile humour ground with
abbreviations like BOBFOC (Body Off Baywatch, Face Off Crimewatch), or how
iPod is no longer just a portable jukebox but has also become shorthand for
the disenchantment of a generation (insecure, Pressurised, over-taxed and debt-ridden),
or my own personal favourite the numerical term ‘1661’ which suggests
a date of great importance but instead, rather cruelly, refers to a woman who
from behind looks 16 but from the front looks 61, not only raising a chuckle
but also showing the imaginative way the language of the street is disseminated
throughout the whole of culture. With its dictionary format, chatty style and
dipping-in-and-out appeal, Shoot The Puppy is the perfect loo read.
AND ANOTHER THING
Jeremy Clarkson
£
7.99, Penguin
You know Christmas is a-coming because The Clarkson starts mugging our media
gaze with a welter of TV shows, DVDs and, of course, the metronome-predictable
release of a couple of books. One of them is niche market because it covers
his specialist motorhead subject, but this has much more broad-sweep appeal.
Subtitled The World According To Clarkson: Volume 2, this is the follow-up
to his 2005 bestseller and takes his scalpel-sharp Sunday Times columns and
bungs the best in one collection. You must have been living under a very remote
rock not to know the Clarksonian modus operandi - forthright, doggedly non-PC
and full of stinging bluster, it’s not shy and retiring in any way. And
that’s why he’s such a great polariser and such a great columnist
because opinion pieces by their very nature live and die by the bravery of
their writers: woollily seeing the argument from all angles just won’t
fly. So we have broadsides against fervent environmentalists, health & safety
jobsworthiness and Russians in Speedos with Clarkson playing the ham-panto
villain with thigh-slapping gusto, as well as giving some surprisingly astute
insights. An ideal stocking filler.
Jason Jones is a real logophile