Hamish’s choices
Theme: Reappraisal
We met on Thursday 3 April 2025 to discuss Hamish’s choices
Hamish was offered A Touch Of Daniel by Peter Tinniswood as a free book from World Of Books in a four for three deal. A lost comedy classic apparently. This was quite enough for Hamish to add it to his basket. A casual perusal of the cover also convinced him that it would do nicely for his HBG choice.
So is it really a long lost comedy classic? We’d reappraise it.
As we would his other choices.
Pitchfork reckon Ultravox are way better than their reputation suggests, including Quartet.
And, following the sad death of David Lynch, his 1992 film is also ripe for reappraisal.
Let’s reappraise….
READ: A Touch Of Daniel by Peter Tinniswood
Bizarre and yet also compelling and increasingly beguiling was the general consensus, sort of. By the conclusion some of us were completely won over by the surreal brand of social realism.
The Brandon family are a well drawn Northern English working class family, and the much put upon son Carter Brandon is the star of the show. Collectively they make an endearing and eccentric bunch.
The dry, deadpan humour is perfectly observed and there are plenty of witty lines of dialogue complete with that distinctive understated and matter of fact Northern sensibility.
Whilst primarily comedic the novel also provides a convincing social commentary on the realities of life in Northern England in the late 1960s.
The racial attitudes are of their time but, that aside, this novel really stands up and is an unexpected delight - although individual levels of enthusiasm are reflected in the scores below…..
Nick 3.5 / Tristan 6 / Nigel 8 / Keith 8 / Roland 7 / Robin 6 / Hamish 5
LISTEN: Quartet by Ultravox
Quartet, the third Ultravox album with Midge at the helm, is safe, polished, bland and predictable. This is all fine and inoffensive but also very slick and unremarkable. That said, Hamish detected a depth to it. Tristan thought it faintly ridiculous. Keith found it a tad tame despite his synthy inclinations as a teenager. Robin found it blank and boring. For Nick it was unforgivably earnest. Roland said it was shite. Nigel preferred the earlier John Foxx incarnation of Ultravox.
Nick - / Tristan 1 / Nigel 4 / Keith - / Roland - / Robin - / Hamish 8
WATCH: Fire Walk With Me (1992) Dir by David Lynch
Most were unconvinced by this compelling mix of horror, surrealism and small town America which, it turns out, is a woozy, coked-out hellscape with a monstrous and unbearable trauma at its dark heart.
FWWM also definitively answers the question who killed Laura Palmer
Nick - / Tristan - / Nigel 10 / Keith - / Roland 3 / Robin 4 / Hamish 6
ENDORSE IT
HBG endorse it: 21 February 2025 - 3 April 2025
Get Carter (iPlayer)
O Brother by John Niven (Memoir)
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (Novel)
The Trading Game by Gary Stevenson (Book)
Portsmouth Historic Dockyard (Day out)
Wells Cathedral in Somerset (Day out)
Churchills pub in Clapham (Cheap pub)
