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Bookazine Book Review: What
Men Think About Sex
by Lang Reid
This week’s review is the first novel by Mark Mason,
a young British writer. His book What Men Think About Sex (ISBN
0-7515-3287-8) is in paperback and published this year by Time Warner, so
it has been through some fairly harsh scrutiny before being destined for
publication.
 By page seven, where the obligatory toothbrush had made
its presence felt as an indicator of bedroom proprietorship, I began to
warm to the proposal upon which the book is based - a bedding competition,
complete with “rules” for seduction. Like all men before me (and
hopefully, after me) “sex” is an important ingredient for life. In
fact, at certain stages of life, “sex” is the only reason for living,
and vice versa. If this comes as a shock for some of the lady-folk out
there, I am sorry. At least Mrs. Reid understands her man, to paraphrase
another Country & Western classic (and apologies to Mott the Dog).
The book is a diary sequence, as the two protagonists
in the novel plunge through their days of lust and its justification. As
the plot is fairly free, you can put this book down at will and pick it up
again easily as the author describes his status in the sexual championship
stakes.
Mark Mason has an amusing style of writing and many
original quips. A few to whet your fancy: “Jane’s cleavage is the shop
window of her availability.” “Cheryl’s not so much the mature woman
as the mature woman’s mother.” “It was a bit like running into Julie
Andrews in a Thai brothel.” “A picnic prepared by a cost-conscious
young girl for her anorexic teddy bears.” “Being told to get an
erection is like being told to make your fingernails grow faster. You can
try all you want, but it’s not going to happen.” And ain’t that the
truth!
So the two young men plunge on through the book and
life itself, without much thought to the true meaning of sexuality, other
than the act of congress (and that’s not an American legislative
decision either, gentle reader). However, just as maturity paints itself
all over us, the unwilling entrants in the stakes of the human race, the
two young men have also to face the reality of life and the fact that
sexuality is more than standing room only for one night!
The review copy was made available by Bookazine, 1st
floor Royal Garden Plaza, next to Black Canyon and Boots, and retails for
350 baht. It is a modern novel, despite flashes of J.D. Salinger’s
Catcher in the Rye and Keith Waterhouse’s Billy Liar. Times may have
changed, the object of desire may now be Kylie Minogue, the Australian
singing budgie, rather than Roger Vadim’s sex pigeon Brigitte Bardot,
but boys will still be boys! Mason details that side of the male psyche
with a refreshing candour that may leave some of my male friends cringing
a little with embarrassment. However, they should not shoulder all the
blame for our sexuality. Women have their part to play too. Thank
goodness.
A fun book and a good giggle.
Movie Review: The Bourne
Identity
By Poppy
Matt Damon plays CIA agent Jason Bourne, who is
suffering from amnesia. Bourne is presumed dead, shot and drowned by the
CIA but some fishermen rescue him. He revives but his mind is a blank, and
all he has to go on is the number of a mysterious deposit box in a Swiss
bank. The box contains passports in six names and countries, bundles of
international currency, a pistol and an address in Paris.
 Bourne slowly starts to put together the pieces of his
past life but it’s all on-the-job training. His martial arts skills come
to the fore when he’s attacked by European police and the CIA. Although
he is fleeing the police from the top of a tall building, he doesn’t
fire a high-tech gizmo to swing to safety, instead he cautiously shimmies
down the wall like a mountain climber. I suppose he could be compared to a
reserved James Bond.
He doesn’t seduce a lady as Bond would; he merely
bribes Marie Kreutz (Franka Potente) with $10,000 in cash to drive him to
France in her beat up old mini (what happened to the Aston Martin?). His
forgotten fluency in French and German returns to assist them as they
travel from Zurich to Paris. They are chased by a mysterious assassin (Clive
Owen) and CIA Operations Chief Ted Conklin (Chris Cooper) who has called
on his top agents in Europe to track them down and eliminate them.
The Bourne Identity is based on a 22 year old novel by
the late Robert Ludlum, who also wrote The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne
Ultimatum with the same character, so we can no doubt expect a couple of
sequels to come in the future.
The cast work well together and the movie’s very easy
to watch, if a little ‘tongue in cheek’.
Directed by Doug Liman
Starring Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Chris Cooper and Clive Owen.
Mott’s CD review:
JBarclay James Harvest / Once Again
by Mott the Dog
***** 5 Stars for
Mocking Bird
You’ve just got to love “Barclay James Harvest”
if only for their perseverance. Formed in 1967 they are still going today.
One of the first bands signed to Emi special progressive rock label
Harvest in 1969, the battle still rages amongst their hard core fans (yes,
both of them) as to whether the label was named after the band or the band
after the label.
 Over their career they have released more than 20
studio albums and umpteen live and greatest hits packages with sales of
each album diminishing from the last as they slip from major record
companies to the small independents.
Always labelled a poor man’s Moody Blues, on 1977’s
album “Gone To Earth” they actually wrote and recorded a song called -
yes, you guessed it - “Poor Man’s Moody Blues”. Today it’s still a
fan’s favourite in their live set and shows at least a good sense of
humour.
Originally a four piece, one of whom was wonderfully
nicknamed “Woolly” and an orchestral director in the George Martin
role; one Robert John Godfrey (who later went on to form “The Enid” if
you like, a poor man’s “Barclay James Harvest”). They released two
albums in the space of a year, and here they are repackaged and
re-released as a two in one C.D. This certainly represents the best work
to come out of the Barclay James Harvest camp, a bargain indeed.
To say that the music is overblown and pretentious is
rather an understatement. In spite of that their debut album did produce
some rather wonderful moments, Stuart (Woolly) Wolstenholme’s “The Sun
Will Never Shine” has some majestically sweeping keyboards, predating
all this supposedly relaxing and soothing music we are told to listen to
today in times of stress (give this dog “Mott the Hoople” any day),
and closing song as it was in their live act at the time the epic “Dark
Now My Sky”, which was based on the classic ecological book “Silent
Spring” by Rachel Carson. A little titbit for all you greenies out
there.
But if Barclay James Harvest have a classic album, it
was the second one, “Once Again”. The opening number began life as two
distinct songs written by Les Holroyd, which were linked together with an
Elizabethan-style recorder solo to create “She Said”. For
“Galadriel” John Lees borrowed a blonde Gibson Epiphone acoustic
guitar which had been left lying around at Abbey Road by John Lennon. Lees
uses this to great effect to produce a wonderful love song. The starkly
violent song “Ball And Chain” is certainly as animated as Barclay
James Harvest get with Woolly’s strained vocal effects being achieved by
him singing his heart out through a paper cup with the bottom pushed out!
It also gives John Lees a chance to stretch out with the electric six
strings.
However, every band has got one classic song in them.
Barclay James Harvest will always be remembered for the magnificent
“Mocking Bird”, a classic progressive rock ballad, lyrically of the
time it’s purely about love and peace, but the melody of the song is
nothing short of sumptuous. The price to this collection is worth it alone
for this one song.
Barclay James Harvest were never one of the top bands
in the world of music, but certainly deserve their chapter in rock
anthologies.
Musicians
Stuart (Woolly) Wolstenholme - Keyboards & Vocals
John Lees - Guitars & Vocals
Mel Pritchard - Drums
Les Holroyd - Bass, Keyboards & Vocals
Track Listing
1. Taking Some Time On
2. Mother Dear
3. The Sun Will Never Shine
4.When The World Was Woken
5. Good Love Child
6. The Iron Maiden
7. Dark Now My Sky
8. She Said
9. Happy Old World
10. Song For Dying
11. Galadriel
12. Mocking Bird
13. Vanessa Simmons
14. Ball And Chain
15. Lady Loves
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