Book Review of Morris Telford - A Salopian Odyssey
If you read only one book in your lifetime, forget Lord Of The Rings (go and see the films instead), forget War and Peace (too may pages), forget Lady Chatterleys Lover (Just read pages 16, 53, 54 and 78 they're the good bits) and forget Militant Trade Unionism - A Re-Analysis of Industrial Actrion in an Inflationary Situation (It contains outmoded ideas about the prime determinants and the limitations of Keynesian analysis), go and buy "Morris Telford - A Salopian Odyssey" and you'll be very, very happy.
It started out as an online diary on the BBC Shropshire website. A thirty three year old man, obsessed with Bingo, stationary and Countdown, living with his Mother in a small village. He decides to quite his job, take his life savings and embark on a worldwide quest to convince everybody outside Shropshire that if they lived life like the people in his village do they would be much happier. It sounds naive, but he managed to get quite a following and now a big chunk of China, a little bit of Amsterdam, an all-girl Australian Beatles tribute band and a Dutch chapter of the Hells Angels all see Morris Telford as the man with the answers.
It's full of weird little moments, like the geriatric hippies that "surf" naked on top of their winnebago, the pet therapist that takes over the journal during an armed seige, the Alaskan Pope and the fake windmills in Holland.
Written in the style of a daily journal, it's a blow by blow. day by day account of who Morris meets, what Morris does and his musings on the many similarities between world culture and the farm cottage he was brought up in. It's funny, sad and infuriatingly complicated, but well worth the time and effort.
The book contains all the entries from the BBC journal's first 41 weeks - (see the BBC site - http://www.bbc.co.uk/shropshire/features/blog/index.shtml )
It's by far the funniest, most moving read I've had in a long, long time and I'd heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoys offbeat humour with a surreal edge. It can only be bought online at the moment via http://www.cafepress.com/morristelford
Buy it, tell your friends, tell them to tell their friends to tell their friends and let the message of Morris Telford resound throughout the earth.
Rating - 763 out of 10
I would like to emphasise that I have not let the fact that I wrote the book influence my review in any way and this opinion is entirely objective.
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Sep 27th, 2004
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