Search results for ""Author Simon Hoggart""

Simon Hoggart has long been admired as one of our leading commentators on modern life. His memoirs encompass his radio career, most notably as chair of the News Quiz, his life as a journalist and as an observer of the people he has met along the way.A Long Lunch is both funny and quirky, whilst also being full of wisdom and insight.During his career, Simon has met every British prime minister from Harold Macmillan onwards. His memoirs will divulge what Alan Clark thought about Melvyn Bragg, what really happened at the Lady Chatterley trial, what Cherie Blair said to Simon and how he riposted, how John Sergeant drove an air stewardess to a raging fury and much more. From drunken episodes behind the scenes at the House of Commons to unexpected meetings in TV green rooms, Simon Hoggart both entertains and delights.

Read more less

Read about how John Major learned the English language from his time in Nigeria. There is Tony Blair, with his verb-free sentences which imply everything and promise nothing. Gordon Brown, the grumpiest prime minister of recent years, both Stalin and Mr Bean. And now David Cameron - who really, really hates being drawn with a condom on his head.Let's not forget John Prescott, who can wrestle the English language to the mat and win by two falls to a submission, Michael Fabricant with his hairpiece stolen from the tail of a My Little Pony, Sir Peter Tapsell, a grandee so grand thatwhen he rises to speak, Hansard writers are replaced by a crack team of monks to write up his words in illuminated lettering. Nick Clegg, with his default expression of a man's whose children's puppy is still missing. And of course,the famous 2010 press conference in the garden of Downing Street, a love-in that would have been illegal in 44 American states.This book, the best of Simon Hoggart's political sketchwriting, will have you laughing, chuckling, roaring, sniggering, and sometimes despairing. It is instant history with added jokes.

Read more less

When a society becomes more affluent, does it lose other values? Are the skills that education and literacy gave millions wasted on consuming pop culture? Do the media coerce us into a world of the superficial and the material - or can they be a force for good? When Richard Hoggart asked these questions in his 1957 book The Uses of Literacy Britain was undergoing huge social change, yet his landmark work has lost none of its pertinence and power today. Hoggart gives a fascinating insight into the close-knit values of Northern England's vanishing working-class communities, and weaves this together with his views on the arrival of a new, homogenous 'mass' US-influenced culture. His headline-grabbing bestseller opened up a whole new area of cultural study and remains essential reading, both as a historical document, and as a commentary on class, poverty and the media.

Read more less