back to article Broadmoor: My Journey Into Hell, The Chimes and Cowboys and Indies

El Reg bookworm Mark Diston peruses the pick of publishing this week with a début novel from Anna Smaill whose musicality abounds in the post-apocalyptic tale. Back in the real world, one man apocalypse Charles Bronson tells more tales of life inside, and finally Gareth Murphy tracks the history of the music industry. The …

  1. chriswakey

    Fuck Bronson

    I'm stunned at the amount of people who think Bronson has been hard done by, and want him released...there's even a pub here that named one of their bars the 'Free Charles Bronson Bar' in the psycho's honour.

    1. Anonymous Coward 101

      Re: Fuck Bronson

      Cos he were harsh to the nonces, innit?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Fuck Bronson

        It is interesting how innocent murderers, armed robbers and hit men seem to try to justify their own criminality by looking down on paedophiles. Perhaps it's the British caste system. In the Gulags, it is said, ordinary criminals looked down on political prisoners.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @ AC 101

        Because violent, hypocritical, untrustworthy, totally selfish criminals are obviously not going to abuse children, are they? You believe only honest people would do that, do you? Honestly?

    2. jason 7

      Re: Fuck Bronson

      Indeed, you read stuff about him and he's just one big contradiction.

      "I don't wanna be in the nick!"

      Well maybe don't be such a dick then?

  2. Bloakey1

    Papillon?

    <snip>

    But the great thing about this book is that it presents its protagonist and the establishment in a warts-and-all style that is compelling and engaging. Charlie Bronson’s struggle against authority and imprisonment brings Henri Charrière’s Papillon to mind: the regime is less harsh, but the prospects for ultimate escape diminished.

    <snip>

    Hmmmm, Charriere's book was a pack of lies and he was a deeply unpopular man with the other convicts, not the popular dood as seen in the film. It is more likely that the stories he told were ones he heard from others and the French have no record of him being an escapee.. It is likely that he assumed the identity of a guy called Charles Brunier, who did have a 'papillon' tattoo and who often tried to escape.

    Having said that, anyone who has been imprisoned in 'St Laurent du Maron'i and the 'Isles du Salut' deserve my respect. The last time I was down that way I had a good look round and it is still pretty horrific even now.

  3. Toastan Buttar

    Shoe-in.

    "Shoo-in", as discussed on Radcliffe & Maconie, just this week. As in, shooing a goose into a pen.

    (And it was a new one to me - I'm not just being a grammar Nazi for the sake of it).

  4. peterkin

    Ding Dong

    I read an advance galley of THE CHIMES last year and thought it was like a cake that was all icing and no cake. Buried under all the needlessly alienating language is something so simple and banal you could run it off in a day or two at 5,000 words and be done.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Review of review

    I read through the whole review of The Chimes. I'm grateful to the author for reading the book so I didn't have to, but could you possibly do a John Crace and have a potted review in one sentence, so I don't have to read to the end on the basis that there must be something good about this book to merit such a long review? Perhaps a star rating would do it.

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