High Society - Ben Elton

...TV show through to his high profile Concerts and appearances at the Brits telling tales of drugs, sex and of course rock and roll. We follow the recent course of his life learning about the ups and downs of celebrity and how his alcoholism and drug use landed him in the meetings he attends. Next we have Peter Paget, an ambitious Labour back bencher, happily married with two kids in an upmarket area of the country. Paget has a radical stance on the ...
...the support of someone very high up in the Police force and events happen that turns his private members bill into front page news and he gradually gets the support of the nation. Jessie is a young runaway girl from Glasgow and we first meet her fresh of the bus in London. We follow her story as she is dragged into the world of prostitution after being given the chance to ‘just try’ some heroin. She starts off as a pimps whore however after trying ...

drewboy 28.09.2004 · Read full review
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Review of High Society - Ben Elton

Shock horror He did it again! This is my favourite Ben Elton Book (and I've read a few). I just love his bare faced honesty. He doesn't seem to care at all about controversy and if people may be offended by what he writes. He thinks these things so he writes these things and I wish other authors could grow a spine and do the same. This is the first one of his books I read and I have been hooked ever since. Anyway onto the book itself. The story ...
...its stupidity and the law. The main subject is drugs but Elton has incorporated these other issues to get the reader thinking around the subject. Each issue is a separate story line. This may sound confusing but it really isn't at all. Each story is easily followed and each character and stage of events is memorable enough to make the book pretty easy to read. It's not one of those books that you need a dictionary to understand. It was written to ...

nereesa85 24.01.2007 · Read full review
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Review of High Society - Ben Elton

...I plucked his latest novel, High Society, from the supermarket shelves I approached it with an open mind and looked forward to a rollocking good read with a bit of food-for-thought thrown in for good measure. High Society is about the war on drugs and the fact that it is well and truly lost. Like the film and TV series Traffic, it presents drugs and their personal and societal effects from a variety of perspectives and forms a map of a world paying ...
...to infiltrate all levels of the social strata and take control. The novel centers around five different characters whose lives are ruled by drugs: Peter Paget MP is in favour of the legalisation of all drugs. He sees that the war against them can never be won and believes that the only way to minimize the harm they do is to take them out of the hands of the violent criminals who control and peddle them. Commander Barry Leman also believes in legalisation. ...

sandrabarber 20.10.2003 · Read full review
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Review of High Society - Ben Elton

...excess of Hollywood and in High Society he takes on the challenge of the legalisation of drugs in the UK. The story itself is told through a series of characters all of who become linked at various times through the common interest of drugs and the impact they have had on their lives. The story opens with rock superstar Tommy Hanson explaining his recent antics at the Brit Awards to his fellow group members at an AA meeting, Hanson himself who shot ...
...sort of composite of Liam Gallagher with his Manc rhetoric and Robbie Williams based upon his lifestyle and boy band credentials, in fact using characters that have a more than passing resemblance to those in real life is a feature of this book, in fact Elton covers this by mentioning the similarities himself. In Peter Paget the crusading MP whose Private Members Bill brings the issue of legalisation into the public domain you have a number of similarities ...

atticusuk 10.06.2007 · Read full review
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Review of High Society - Ben Elton

...the law does not prosecute high profile people, as the can fford to check themselves into rehab clinics atc and leave a few weeks later claiming they are clean... However, Jessie's story shows the bottom end of the scale, where again, the law often fails to prosecute, but also fails to protect the vulnerable individuals involved in the drug-fuelled world from further abuse and problems... The comedy aspect of the book most definately comes from ...
...a serious problem, and Elton again has you wondering, if this were to happen in real life, would this proposed idea of full legalisation work? and after the arguments he presents through his characters, i have to say personally, yes it would! as one line of the book says, "who cares if there are a few more addicts in Britain, so long as you're not having your video nicked" and it is a fair point! Anyway, I've done enough talking, so I wll leave ...

classact39 28.04.2005 · Read full review
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Review of High Society - Ben Elton

...same follows with the novel High Society. This is a story centred around the legalisation of all drugs and the effect that drugs have on today's society, in their current illegal status. The story depicts how the use (and abuse) of drugs is pivotal in many differing lives, ranging from a back-bench politician, who is for all intents and purposes ignored through to the teenage heroin addict forced to sell herself for the next fix. *** THE CHARACTERS ...
...of "Pop Hero" and is as arrogant and idiotic as they come. His life revolves around drinking, taking drugs and sleeping with as many women (and occassionally men) as possible. He is famous, adored by thousands and completely wasting his life. He is without a doubt modelled on a cross between the Gallagher brothers and Robbie Williams (although Elton is quick to refute this by using the names of the real-life rockstars in his story) and his character ...

sunworld 28.08.2004 · Read full review
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Review of High Society - Ben Elton

...also getting increasingly tiresome. High Society has finally made me decide I probably won’t be reading any more. First the plot. Elton structures his books as multi-dimensional approaches to a societal problem (not a bad thing, on the whole, but it can get exhausting), this time drug culture and the criminal justice system. It is an episodic narrative, tracing the interwoven lives of various people from all corners of life, mainly: Peter Paget, ...
...taking under the law, Jessie, a steely young Scottish girl forced into heroin addiction and prostitution, Tommy Hanson “Pop Hero” winner and the man to out-Robbie Robbie (aka a character sketch of said Mr. Williams so thinly veiled as to not be veiled at all), Sonia, a seemingly tough Brummie lass learning about the Thai drug laws the hard way, and Commander Barry Leman, a Met officer trying to rid the police of corruption and instead having it land ...

ruth_cole 02.08.2003 · Read full review
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Review of High Society - Ben Elton

Ben Elton's High Society is a book based on a very interesting 'what if ...' I read the back and it sucked me in there and then... "High society is a story about Britain today, a criminal nation in which everybody is either breaking the law or knows people who do..." "The war on drugs has been lost. The simple fact is the whole world has become one criminal network." Two statements with which I readily agree with, though if you disagree or maybe ...
...all for the legalisation of drugs, this novel will explain just what it's is all about in an easy-to read (..but hard to put down!) interesting way. The book tackles the subject of drug use throughout todays society using characters views from each end of the spectrum. It presents the reader with a realistic view of a world fighting a losing battle against growing drug use and the danger of the drug culture present across society. -And seeing as ...

The-ex-Raven 27.01.2004 · Read full review
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Review of High Society - Ben Elton

Peter is a politician; Tommy is a pop idol; Jessie is a prostitute. Birmingham teenager Sonia is enjoying a free holiday in Bangkok and ten-year-old Billy has discovered some funny sweets in his big sister's bedroom. All their lives will be changed forever by illegal drugs. Like Ben Elton's previous novels, this is a 'what-if?' book. It takes an unlikely premise - in this case, a proposal to legalise all 'recreational' drugs - and shows us the effect ...
...and wide-ranging cast. And like his earlier books, it is chillingly believable thanks chiefly to the author's ability to portray convincing reactions and thoughts for his cast as events unfold. Peter Paget is a backbencher, a very small fish in the political pond. When he is unexpectedly given the chance to present a Private Member's Bill, he is determined to propose that all recreational drugs be made legal. He is prepared for ridicule, disgrace, ...

Worrals 08.01.2003 · Read full review
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Review of High Society - Ben Elton

High society is yet another comical book based on a serious issue, written by Ben Elton (The Young ones, Blackadder, The thin blue line, Stark, Popcorn, and lot’s of others that this review isn’t about!) This is a quite realistic look at drugs and the varied class lifestyles associated with them for people who like gritty realism but don't particularly want to take that close a look at them. Please bear in mind that I read this book round about ...
...damn funny book to read though! Now I’m not saying that drugs are funny in the least but this is probably one of Ben Elton’s better books. Although this is by no means as funny as 'Dead famous' it is still a damn good read. The unbelievable stupidity of some of the main characters had me dumbfounded at times, but the reality of it is that a lot of politicians and superstars seem to act in the same way. Some of the subjects surrounding the context ...

hunnibunni 23.10.2003 (17.12.2003) · Read full review
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Review of High Society - Ben Elton

Another cracking read from Ben Elton. This one features teen prostitutes, drug dealers rock stars and politicians in his usual heady mix of social satire and thrilling suspense. Exposing so many of the double standards in modern society this book really hits at the core of life in Britain today, with fine examples of who survives and who loses out. The main protagonists in this novel are a rock star with huge drug and alcohol problems, an MP trying ...
...in Elton's work, their stories are craftily wound together and you can empathise with all of them. The role of the media in the lives of the two celebrity characters is one of the most striking features, with its intrusion and ability to destroy anything and everything. It's a real page-turner as long as you get into the story and some of the drug-addled ramblings of the rock star and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes a good easy read with incisive ...

Joeshka 28.02.2006 · Read full review
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Review of High Society - Ben Elton

An excellent read that is funny and looks at the different views on the war on drugs. Most entertaining!! Ben Elton is an excellent writer and manages to see things from all perspectives. It could however offend some people who may feel it makes the use of drugs seem glamourous. ...

lancs3179 23.05.2008
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Review of High Society - Ben Elton

high society, is another great book by ben elton. its fast moving with great characters. the characters all seemed to be famous people that you can relate too, giving them a funny or sad side. i love the way elton jumps from one to the other making the book hard too put down, as you what to know what happens to that characters next, each section has a great cliff hanger. tommy a singer, may be their all like him? peter, the mp who if in the real ...
...emily, posh bitich who loves to be naughty. jessie, the girl down on her luck and how she got there. i loved the way the people in this book had an impact on each other weather they knew it or not, they say its a small mworld and elton show in this book that the saying is very true. great read, bring on the next one ...

dillyemily 16.07.2003 · Read full review
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Review of High Society - Ben Elton

...have just finished the book High Society- which I thought was once again Ben Elton superb. I would really, really love to know if Ben believes any of what he has written. Such well versed detail on a subject you did not believe in seems strange to me but then I am not a writer. Do you think the plot detail of High Society could ever work? I would like to see the UK give it a go but I suppose it would be too hard to turn back if it all went horribly ...
...all be able to get high when we want and that taxed coke would bring some awesome revenue into this country! I also wonder why BE did not also get into the issue of prostitution - being as such a central character is a crack whore - and whether our country would benefit from legal brothels, where the girls and guys are clean and looked after which would have gone well in the book. I have just read this back to myself - Christ I am rambling! Read ...

louisa 14.07.2003 · Read full review
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Review of High Society - Ben Elton

This is the second of Ben Elton's books that I have read, and the more serious. The issue is drugs and the criminalisation of a society determined to get 'high'. His central character is Peter Paget a backbench MP with a mission to legalise, licence and control drug use. Entire communities have become mini-kingdoms run by drug barons, murderers and gunmen. Paget reasons that the war on drugs is lost and legalisation is the only route to peace. Initially ...
...he becomes a national hero and Cabinet 'Minister for Drugs'. On the eve of his triumph, the press expose him as the fraud that he is though. He lies and lies, but cant save his career, his marriage or his liberty. His fall is swift and society's attitude proves fickle as his support vanishes as if it never existed. The main theme is interleaved with the lives of drug users from Tommy Hanson, number one pop star to Jessie, a homeless junkie. The ...

Trevor-Haworth 05.02.2004 (29.02.2004) · Read full review
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Review of High Society - Ben Elton