recent disappointments

I do try to always look on the bright side, but sometimes it's just plain hard to do. It's almost a given that January will be dark, gloomy, and generally parsimonious with its blessings. It's the same every year, and that's fine, I know that, so I just keep my head down, grit my teeth and get through it.  

So when I step into February, I usually feel that I've turned a corner. This year however, February had some shocking weather up its sleeve. It was the wettest February weather in over 250 years. Constant downpours, drizzle and mizzle. But I'm sure I don't have to tell you this, if you live in the UK, you'll have had many an outing cancelled, many a shoe spring a leak, many an umbrella turn turtle and die. February this year was very hazy and disappointing.

I was very excited last autumn when Bernie Taupin published his memoir, Scattershot - Life, Music, Elton and Me. It went straight onto my TBR (To Be Read) list. If you aren't aware Bernie is Elton John's lyricist, they've been working together since the late 60s, and I've been a fan of Elton's music, and therefore Bernie's lyrics for as long as I can remember. I can actually date that more specifically. I was a schoolboy when I went to see EJ live at Hammersmith Odeon on Christmas Eve 1974, and the following morning I unwrapped a copy of his Greatest Hits album, which had been released the previous month. It was my prized possession, at the time, and I played it so often that I learned every word (of Bernie's lyrics) so that I could sing a long with Elton. Anyway, I've since read several biographies of Elton, plus his highly entertaining autobiography Me, and I've seen him interviewed countless times. Bernie, though, has always shied away from the spotlight, at least as far as his work with Elton is concerned; I guess it's pretty hard to get a share of the spotlight when Elton is around. Bernie has, in the past, played and sung in his own band (Farm Dogs) and tried his hand at acting (appearing in a couple of episodes of The Hardy Boys & Nancy Drew Mysteries) so he hasn't entirely shunned the limelight.

When I finally picked up Scattershot, I had hoped that it would give some detailed insight into his working process and tell me the stories behind some of the best, and bestselling, songs of all time. This first expectation of mine was dealt a blow almost immediately when he states that the reader shouldn't expect this kind of information. He doesn't always know, he says, where his inspiration comes from, fair enough, and sometimes can't necessarily remember even writing the lyrics to certain songs. Ok. And elsewhere he explodes cherished beliefs; Candle In The Wind was not originally written about Marilyn Monroe. Right then. So, I take all this onboard, as I continue my journey through the 400+ page book, my spirits slowly sinking as he tells me about many episodes in his life outside of the music industry, not many of which I actually find all that interesting. Lots of them detail the endless drug fuelled parties he attended, and the women he bedded. And I could forgive all of that even, it is his life after all, and I did sign up to read about his life, but...but unforgivably some of it is poorly written. There are numerous instances where sentences become so convoluted that they no longer make any sense. Once or twice, I swear, he has even invented words. And I found at least one verifiable mistake. It's as if he declined to have an editor work on his copy, or the editor he did work with was too scared to point out all the errors they found.

I'll give only one example of a poorly written sentence of his; "(John) Bonham was a phenomenal drummer, shame he couldn't have inhabited his skin with the same positive energy to that which he applied to his sticks, too." Why does any of this matter? Because he is a writer. And it matters that writers do their job properly.

And the one obvious mistake? He writes '...the 1966 film Cabaret starring Liza Minnelli...' The film was released in 1972. Perhaps I'm making too much of this, and it's not that big a deal, but if he got this simple fact wrong, and no editor fact-checked it before the book went to print, then what other mistakes are there in the book? Bernie Taupin's memoir - lazy and disappointing.

Recently I started watching videos by a BookTuber who shall remain nameless here. I enjoyed watching some of her content, we admired similar books, and she was engaging to watch. I was considering subscribing to her channel. Then she reviewed a book by Edward Rutherfurd. It's called Sarum. I haven't read it. It recounts the story of Salisbury, in England, from the time of the last ice age until the present day. Interesting, I thought, but with an aside to the camera our book reviewer then explained that she was giving the author a pass on this because it is her belief that the earth is no more than 10,000 years old. Oh boy. Crazy. And disappointing.