Craig Brown on A Classless Society

Craig Brown is the best humourist in the country. He inherited the title twelve years ago, on the death of Auberon Waugh. Indeed Waugh himself called Brown a genius:

That cover illustrates part of why I rate him: having written some of the most acute satires of the time, he packages it like a Top of the Pops album from the 1970s. That's just magnificent, drawing inspiration equally from high politics and low culture. And, as I've written here before, he was one of the few to comment intelligently about Gary Glitter, back in the days when Glitter was the great tabloid hate-figure.

I've loved Brown's writing for so long that I was deeply apprehensive when I heard he was reviewing my book A Classless Society for the Mail on Sunday. With all due respect (as footballers say, but in this instance meant sincerely) to anyone else who might read the book, it was his good opinion that I really wanted.

And, happily, here's his review: 'the field of instant history now attracts some of this country's liveliest and most intelligent writers [and] Alwyn W Turner ranks high among them: ravenously inquisitive, darkly comical and coolly undeceived.' He says more nice things as well, and he gives the book five stars.

Five stars from the man who created the TV parody Norman Ormal, one of the definitive works of the 1990s! I'm overjoyed. I'm very grateful to Mr Brown and to the Mail on Sunday.

Nice too that they mentioned my forthcoming appearance at the Henley Literary Festival.

I'd also like to thank Matthew Engel and the Financial Times for his review of the book: 'very readable and enjoyable ... Reading A Classless Society is like a safari through vaguely familiar country, illuminated by a shrewd, fair-minded guide with an elephantine memory.'

I like that. Particularly the 'elephantine' bit.

As a matter of fact, he's back

I've written about Gary Glitter on this blog before. He was a terrific rock and roll star, responsible for some of the best singles of the 1970s. Not solely responsible, of course, since he had the brilliance of producer Mike Leander and the fine support of the Glitter Band to assist him. But it was his concept and we shouldn't lose sight of just how good he was.

It's difficult, though, because there's effectively been a ban on his music for years now, ever since the jail sentence for possessing paedophile pornography.

So, all credit to the BBC for finally lifting the corner of that ban with its broadcast of a 1977 edition of Top of the Pops. Not the most obvious place to start with Gary's work, but I always rated that single, It Takes All Night Long - one of his sleazier recordings from one of the early comebacks:

There's been a lot of criticism, of course, but for once the BBC have got it right on this issue: 'It would be inappropriate for the BBC to rewrite history, so the programme was shown in its entirety.' Quite right, too. That should have been the position for the last decade and more.

The best comment I ever read on the subject came from Craig Brown in the Daily Telegraph back in November 2005:

'Around the time that Gary Glitter was riding so high, Bernard Levin was busy writing articles in The Times about Wagner. As far as I can remember, he would argue that it was perfectly possible and legitimate to deplore the thoughts and actions of the artist while continuing to rejoice in his art. The same must surely be true of the equally rumbustious sounds of Gary Glitter.'