Call me a pompous snob, (actually, don't, I'll get upset) but I found myself
moaning aloud while reading an poster at Highgate tube advertising a book
“The Catch” by Mark Mason. Part of my working life puts me in
far-too-regular contact with kooky chick-lit books. Here's a precis of “The
Catch” for you to peruse, and to shed some light on why it nearly makes me
vomit.

Watch your back Nick Hornby, because hot new talent Mark Mason has
followed up his brilliant debut, What Men Think About Sex, with a
hilariously insightful novel about men that will make women everywhere
chuckle with recognition – before they give it to their other halves.

Reeling from the revelation that it's not enough to change the pillowcase,
you have to put the pillow inside the flap at the end as well, Sam agrees to
try it. But despite doing the ironing and putting the toilet seat down, his
tally resembles Norway's in the Eurovision Song Contest. Will Sam work out
what women really want – before it's too late?

Agh. Drivel. I don't need some twonk of a novelist to make me “chuckle with
recognition”; I can achieve that with minimal effort, just keeping my eyes
open. As can most people. Anyway, in a masochistic gesture, I looked up his
other book. Brace yourselves.

Twenty-something males Tim and Rob have both got their eye on a
foxy new arrival at work. So in a drunken moment they decide to compete for
the right to win Clare Jordan's hand (and any other bits she deigns to
consider winnable). The champion of The Clare Jordan Five and Three Quarter
Feet Handicap Stakes gets to invite Clare out on a date (paid for,
naturally, by the loser). And the rules are as follows: Tim must seduce five
women whose names start with C, L, A, R and E, while Rob must 'christen'
five places beginning with the same letters (cinema, lay-by – you get the
picture).

If you're looking for a scarily honest but hilarious insight into the male
psyche, look no further than this revealing male version of Sex and the
City!

What frightens me is the idea that this stuff actually speaks volumes to
people. “Scarily honest?” If, at the age of 25, I had got involved in a
competition with someone to seduce five women, never mind what their
initials might be, I'd probably be 1-0 down, after 7 years. Maybe that's
what happens in the book, too. But I doubt it.

To try and calm down a little, I'm listening to “Outlaw”, an album by Eugene
McDaniels. A clean-cut soul singer in the 60s, he underwent an astonishing
transformation which saw plain old Gene McDaniels become “Eugene McDaniels
the Left Rev. Mc D” by 1970. By now a fervent protest singer, he embraced
radical politics to such an extent that US Vice-President Spiro Agnew
allegedly called Atlantic Records to issue a cease-and-desist order upon the
release of his album “Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse”. It's incredibly
earnest stuff, but with a few unintentional laughs. Such as:

children are dying in poverty
fear lives in the land of liberty
and the silent majority
are stuffing their faces with pastry

and

she sleeps in the nude
she's an outlaw
she don't wear a bra

I think this shows the Sex Pistols up for what they were.