Splinters

Over the past few years I have come to read several of the Pocket Essentials series, an ongoing set of short, concise books giving a pithy summation of a violently varied array of subjects.

While away on holiday last month, I was able to polish off two in the series in a couple of days. One was on Cyberpunk literature, the other on the German Expressionist cinema of the early 20th century, both subjects I have some interest in, but am a relative novice to when it comes to the knowledge. After reading both I was considerably more illuminated than when I began, and all for the addition of only a few grams to my hand luggage! A slightly longer one on the films of the Coen Brothers, which I am not nearly such a novice on, but am eager to find out a bit more about, will be read shortly.

Things like the Pocket Essentials are small, but, to me, heartening examples of the endurance of the book format in the internet age. You can trawl for hours to find all you need on the web, but sometimes a pocket-sized slice of pithy knowledge of just what you want to know to carry around is a far more enticing proposition. By their nature few of them are going to be startling pieces of work, though one in particular I read two years, Robin Ramsays Pocket Essentials Guide to the Rise of New Labour was a bit of an eye-opener. Ramsay runs the magazine Lobster, perhaps best described as the sanest conspiracy theory magazine available (a bit like the accolade of most intelligent footballer I know)

Anyway, Ramsay's little tome unearths a lot of very disturbing facts about the extent to which the right-wing of the Social Democratic movement in Britain was influenced by CIA fronts, who got what they were working for all those years when New Labour came to power. Ramsay has a lovely phrase describing Blair as The last dribble of Thatcherism down the trouserleg of British politics.


Very interesting, and proof that the Pocket Essentials series is not just Facts For Dummies but has a few shocks in its eclectic bag. The bizarre selection the series has on offer is itself both intriguing and endearing. While its got lots of film entries, the only ones in the music section so far are Madchester, The Beatles, the Beastie Boys, Bruce Springsteen and Jethro Tull! Half Man Half Biscuit next please!