The Perfectionist

 Books recently read: Dave Gorman: America Unchained The Perfectionist - Rudolph ChelminskiRich Smith - Around the Weird in 80 daysJonathan Ross: Why do I say these things?

Ronnie Wood, 'Renoir of Rock'

Ronnie Wood's autobiography, Ronnie, is a great (well, for £3.49 in paperback, it is) tour around his west London beginnings from a long family history of water gypsies, through the 60s' London band scene to his rise to fame with the Faces and on the Rolling Stones' worldwide tours. 

Fascinating read, with enough detail to keep the interest going, not least his ability to wade through money like it was water (training race horses in Ireland doesn't help, neither did the booze, drugs or bad business deals). 

His art is always interesting, in a naive way, because of the subject matter and is an integral part of his creative life (and clearly lucrative, since it's got him out of financial trouble a few times).

Former model Jo Wood was his 'rock'n'roll chick' wife, by his side for 23 years until she pocketed a reported £6.5m in their quickie divorce settlement last year - but the story runs out before then... 

However, Jo's dedication to all things organic (after being 'mis-diagnosed' with Crohn's disease) vested itself in a cleaner-living Ronnie (well, at least for part of the time they were together - how clean is clean when you've lived a rock'n'roll lifestyle like he has?) and her own organic line of skin care, Jo Wood's Organics. 

"Don't fuck with nature", she says - nicely put, dear...

John Peel - legendary DJ

Broadcasting legend John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, otherwise known as veteran Radio 1 DJ John Peel, OBE (awarded in 1998 for services to music). 

His eclectic taste and honest, subjective approach to new music attracted a warm-hearted audience since he started to grace the Radio 1 airwaves in 1967. He was very influential in his own, unique way, however he was usually too 'indie' for me, being more of a Bob Harris man.

John Peel - Margrave of the Marshes, the second half of which was completed by his wife, Sheila, is a love story masquerading as the part-autobiograpgy of a gentle philosopher who always threw in a salty dose of reality to his broadcasts and the way he lived his life. His belief in the primacy of Liverpool FC, the love of his wife and their Suffolk home (Peel Towers - actually, a thatched cottage, from where he broadcast in later years) and an intrepid drive to be different on Radio 1 are constant themes throughout the book. His favoured Radio 1 'rhythm pals' included Johnnie Walker, Kid Jensen, producer John Walters and Andy Kershaw.

His public-school ('imperfect') education at Shrewsbury belies him, but he also belittles it beautifully in the book by writing that his children would say that it provided him only with 'the sort of education that enables you to talk for about twenty seconds on almost any topic, although there is no one thing thing about which you know a great deal'.

Peel was a Private-Eye loving maverick with the gift of the gab, whose style and bravado I much admired and - curiously - have something in common with. Both he and I attended the Martin Luther King memorial service in St Paul's Cathedral; he was outside with the crowds, while I was inside, singing as a 13-year-old chorister.


The best £3.25 I've spent on a hardback book in ages, courtesy of a charity shop in Canterbury last summer.


* Grauniad: A Life in Pictures
* BBC1 Tribute site 
* Hear the voice of the legend and the sweet-eating game (courtesy of www.planetbods.org)
* Pics from the annual John Peel Day celebrated around the country


Human rights campaigner Martin Luther King preached at St Paul's Cathedral on his way to Oslo to collect the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr King preached to a full Cathedral at Evensong on 6 December 1964 (four years before he was assassinated), where he spoke of signs of a rapidly growing problem of race relations in Britain. 'We must not seek to rise from a position of disadvantage to one of advantage, substituting injustice of one type for that of another,' he said. 'God is not interested in the freedom of white, black or yellow men, but in the freedom of the whole human race.'

Dear Fatty

Books recently read (titles have direct links to Amazon.co.uk):

• Graham Greene - The Quiet American - a carefully crafted, vintage classic, circular novel that starts with the dénouement and works back round to it:

Into the intrigue and violence of 1950s' colonial Indo-China comes a young, idealistic, quiet American (Pyle) sent to promote democracy through a mysterious 'Third Force'. As his naive optimism starts to cause bloodshed, his friend Thomas Fowler (the narrator), a cynical foreign correspondent, finds it hard to stand aside and watch. But even as he intervenes he wonders why: for the sake of politics, or for love?

• Michael Ochs - 1000 Record Covers - 1000 classic LP album covers: 60s-90s musical history as art.

• Stuart Maconie - Adventures on the High Teas: In Search of Middle England - a time capsule of England as it is now; in its quirky, offbeat way, a celebration of this country's extraordinary capacity to accommodate change while remaining essentially the same. Also a few good titters along the way. "The English Bill Bryson"? He writes well, for a Northerner.

A celebration of the workaday pleasures of living in Britain and the characters along the way, from trainspotters to tea-room ladies and hoodies to binge-drinkers. Stuart Maconie is perhaps best known as a radio presenter, co-hosting the Radcliffe and Maconie Show on BBC Radio 2 every Mon-Thu evening.

• Andrew Rimas and Evan D.G. Fraser - Beef (How Milk, Meat and Muscle Shaped the World) -

Not exactly a riveting read (it's patchy and somewhat random in content), but well-research and the more interesting for it, nonetheless. More for food historians than meat-eaters.

Cattle have always been central to our human existence, not only as a source of food and labour but also as an inspiration for art, warfare and religion. This panoramic view of the cow's rich history covers breeding to braising, hunting to worshipping, from ancient Mediterranean bullfighting rings to the rugged pastures of 18th-century England. Seasoned with anecdotes and recipes from around the world, it's also an indictment of the perilous state of beef production in Europe and the US - a situation possibly closer to a health and economic emergency than most might believe.

• Dawn French - Dear Fatty - a lovely autobiography, written in the style of individual letters to people who have meant most to actress and comedienne Dawn French across her 50-odd years.

She's a national treasure, of course, and naturally funny, which comes out clearly in her writing. But there's more than the odd stream of emotion for the loss of her father (who committed suicide) and the love of her life, comedian Lenny Henry. There's little real detail of her showbiz life (Comedy Club - Fabulous Five, Vicar of Dibley et al), but it raises a few laughs along the way.

One Red Paperclip

Books recently read: 

* One Red Paperclip is an extraordinary tale of a Canadian who traded online up in steps from a paperclip to a house at 503 Main Strreet, Kipling, Saskatchewan in Canada. Great ingenuity and a modern-day fairytale of rags to riches - well, not quite, but a captivating story all the same. 

...and the story hasn't stopped at the house (click here).

* Narrow Dog to Indian River is the sequel to Narrow Dog to Carcassonne, written by an English canal boat owner (with a narrow dog, an essential part of the story, to match) who takes his unusual craft down the canals and rivers of the Eastern seaboard of the United States.

* Julie Walters's That's Another Story is a well-written autobiography of her immensely successful life as an actress, covering a path from her Oscar-winning performance in Educating Rita, via Petula Gordino in the wonderful TV series dinnerladies, Mrs Overall in Victoria Wood's Acorn Antiques and Molly Weasley in the Harry Potter movies, right through to Rosie in Mamma Mia!.. A truly funny woman and an entertaining read.

* Andrew Flintoff's Being Freddie - My Story So Far is not quite so brilliantly written(!), but takes us through the life of this injury-prone Lancastrian cricketer up until the vital part he played in England's amazing 2005 Ashes series win.

Like father, like daughter

Being a big fan of The Osbournes TV series, I thought I'd delve deeper into the eccentric world of Ozzie, Kelly, Jack, their mum, Sharon, and her father, Don Arden (the 'godfather of rock'n'roll'). Arden's biography Mr Big, shows him to be a much-feared, ruthless and violent businessman in the music industry, managing Amen Corner, The Small Faces, Black Sabbath and The Electric Light Orchestra.

The Rock Star Babylon book promotes the two now-famous stories of Arden's heavies hanging Robert Stigwood out of a window and Ozzie biting the head off two doves in the CBS offices. Sharon has done her own hell-raising, didn't talk to her father for 20 years, survived colon cancer and made big bucks on TV. Their stories come up-to-date with a happy ending and a family reunited, all as rich as stinkers. The kids have tried to take on the mantle of hell-raisers, like chips off the old block, while the lovable old Ozzy still laughs all the way to the Paranoid bank via more than the odd hospital and rehab centre along the way. It's a rich seam and an enjoyable reading route, including Sharon's autobiography, Extreme.

Don Arden always required the last word, of course.
To be continued...

www..ozzy.com & www.sharonosbourne.com