About The Chain Race

I have posted on the blog a story I wrote a couple of years ago, The Chain Race. It is  based loosely on the life of Choppy Warburton and his stable of racing cyclists in the 1890's. The main sources was Gerry Moore's 'The Little Black Bottle' but the story of Choppy crops up as a footnote in a few books on the history of cycling though I suspect that Moore's book is the principle source even for them.

The story takes us back to the point where the sport was just beginning to take the shape we know today. The case of Choppy is often sighted as evidence that there was never and age of innocence in cycling, that doping has been part and parcel of it since day one. But maybe what is more surprising is how Choppy assembled a world class team of British riders, the nucleus of which came from one family and their friends in Wales.

For anyone who has the stamina to read it, thank you.
 

Mad About the Boy - Bridget Jones - Send her back to a simpler time

Bridget Jones appeared in the mid 90’s, an optimistic and frivolous time. The economy was on the up, the Berlin  Wall had come down. There was a fresh young government on its way, Brit pop had won the war, and Brit art had conquered the world. The grim 70’s and the grasping 80’s were supposed to be giving way to a better time, less boom and bust, more ethical. It was starting to look like things were even going to get better even for Palastine. Football was going to be great and women were free to get just as pissed, and be just as sexually indiscreet as they wanted to be.

With that backdrop the light comedy romance of a young(ish) angsting woman making her way in the media kind did fitted the mood of the time. It was a satire, but an affectionate one on a certain type of person. Much could be forgiven in a world where Loaded was flying off the shelves and porn had gone mainstream. The reappearance of the now widowed 50 plus Jones is a much more problematic. Much is to do with the times. Brit Art’s place not only in the world but our popular conscience is much diminished. Brit pop can now been seen as the defeat it was. But much more we have been living through seven years of austerity, at time that has seen many people (and not just the poor an ill educated) face real hardship. We are faced with what feels like eternal rolling conflict in the middle east, and the old superpower tensions are back. It’s a far harder, meaner world than the one where Bridget was left last time out.

Of course you will know none of this from the pages of Mad About the Boy. Bridget and her circle of (extremely) well off relatives and friends seem completely untouched but the troubles of the intervening 18 years. Even the detonation of Mr Darcy in Darfur does not seem to have given Bridget any insight into the world beyond her immediate experience. Nobody, not even the boho Rebecca appear to have any money concerns, as they move between private school functions, edgy London Nightspots, parties and gatherings. They are oblivious to any world beyond this. And we were told, we are all in this together. Helen Fielding has, if we needed it laid bare that lie.

So where do we find Bridget and why should we care? Now over 50 and widowed she is raising her two children on her own. Well on her own with the help of family, and wide circle of very nice friends and no shortage of cash. Mr Darcy had to have been killed. For him to have taken the more familiar exit route from a marriage, infidelity and divorce, would have harmed the brand of the earlier books. But his death allows us and Bridget to embark on yet another featherlight search for love. In this she seems to have gained no knowledge or wisdom, but re-enacts the innocent abroad that appeared in the earlier books. It proceeds, following an updated version of the diary format through a series of set pieces. These have a familiar pattern where unlikely social catastophy leads to short term grief and humiliation before turning out alright in the end.

While one is led to believe that Bridget is chaos on legs she does also seem remarkably and effortlessly talented. She manages to acquire and agent for her screen play, a screen play that actually starts getting made, without this being a burning desire. Her creative career is placed a long way behind her children and her search for a man. And here we stumble onto more dodgy ground. It feels like one of those British comedies from the 1950’s with Dirk Bogard. The kind of film were despite being a genius all a woman want is a man. This image is hardened by a supporting cast and plot that determinedly follows this path. While in the 90’s Girl Power and Ladette drowned out many feminists, this is no longer the case. But Bridget’s circle seem untouched not only by austerity, but have not heard the rising voices of feminists either.

I presume this book has not been written to be the catalyst for some violent uprising by the have nots. So who is it for? Who empathises with Bridget enough to come away from this book warmed inside. I guess there is an element of wish fulfilment. If Fielding’s readership has grown with her, then yearning for the excitement and pleasure of new love must have a big appeal. It is also reassuring, everything turns out ok, even though the children get nits and pick up leaflets on venereal disease and tell the school embarrassing things. Its also at times quite funny. Fielding creates some nice moments. But its not enough. Like Loaded and Oasis, Bridget Jones belongs in the 90’s, something we can look on as typical of its time. Reheating now sees a book that struggles to rise above the crass.