The Digested Twenty-first Century

by John Crace

  I love men. By men, I mean famous men. Jeremy Irons is dreamy. And I fancy all the Beatles equally, but if I had to choose one of them it would be Mick Jagger. Here’s a photo of him that I didn’t take. My biggest influence has been Jane Birkin. Probably because she has never done that much either. Here’s a photo of her.

  This book is beginning to completely fall apart, isn’t it? But I haven’t really got anything to say. Have you noticed how many pop songs are about break-ups or being generally bummed out? How weird is that? The thing about being heartbroken is that it feels like your heart really has been broken. When I don’t feel I have the answers to all life’s problems, I type my questions into Google. It’s uncanny how often you can find out something useful. When I last typed in ‘Help! I’m really, really unhappy’ the first thing that came up was: ‘Go to the Caribbean and get wasted with your really cool friends for three weeks.’ Here’s a photo of me in sunglasses. CRA-ZEE!

  My mum is the coolest mum in the world. Whenever I break up with a boyfriend, she tells me to go out and shag someone else. How cool is that? I don’t seem to have a photo of my mum.

  Sometimes my male friends get really depressed. That’s because they don’t have enough leather jackets. You can never have too many leather jackets. I’ve got 25 at least. I really do believe that if everyone in the world had 25 leather jackets, no one would be unhappy again ever. Here’s a photo of me in one of my leather jackets.

  Some people become doctors. Others win the Nobel Prize and shit like that. The woman down the road does my nails, though I find it very annoying I can’t update my Twitter status to #having-manicure when I am actually having a manicure – because I can’t use my phone and have my nails done at the same time. Someone should really think of a gadget to get round that. We all have to realise what we are best at and go for it wholeheartedly. I do nothing. Here’s a photo of me doing nothing.

  I so love Karl Lagerfeld. He is literally the funniest guy in the entire world. He needs to be looking like the way he does.

  Digested read, digested: Anyone know what Alexa Chung actually does?

  Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

  by Helen Fielding (2013)

  18 April 2013

  Years since last book:15; Money in the bank: too much to count

  9.15am Funny buzzing in my pocket. Decide to ignore it. 9.20am Knock on the door. It’s Talitha, telling me she’s been Texting me. Look blank. ‘Your phone,’ she says. So that’s what that BUZZING was! Not sure why I capitalised that. Must have a drink.

  9.30am Talitha says it’s her 60th birthday on May 24th. OMG. That’s the same day as the Roxter’s 30th. ‘You can bring your Toy Boy if you like,’ she says.

  9.45am Agent phones to say my Hedda Gabbler screenplay has got the green light.

  9.50am Having second thoughts about mis-spelling Hedda Gabler. Editor says it will make me look cute and ditzy. ‘Just like the old Bridget!’ I think it just makes me look dim.

  23 June 2012

  Alcohol units drunk: not enough; pages to fill: too many

  8.30am Late getting Billy to school. Mabel has diarrhoea. HELP!!! I do miss Mark. Shame he had to die, but couldn’t have written another book if he’d been around and we’d been, like, really happy and smug oldly-weds!! And going through a messy separation would have made Elizabeth Bennet VERY, VERY cross. Hope she approves of his hero’s death.

  9.30pm Miranda comes round and says it’s time I stopped being so boring and had a jolly good shag. Drink three bottles of wine. Miranda brings out this odd metal thing. Says it can send messages to people by something called email. Note to self: must get one. She finds Leatherjacketman on Slipyoualength.com.

  11.30pm Try to stick my tongue down Leatherjacketman’s throat. Leatherjacketman makes a run for it. WHOOPS!!

  7 December 2012

  Weight: miraculously slim; worries about the menopause: none

  9.47am Letter from school. Atticus and Hero have Nits. Really, really scared. What are Nits? Are they like Aids or something?

  11.21am Have discovered Twitter. It’s totes amazeballs. Can’t understand why no one laughs at @JonesyBJ. AAAGH! Have accidentally twittered ‘I really fancy the Roxter’ to everyone!!! Could die with embarrassment. The Roxter twitters back and invites me on a date.

  12.57pm DISASTER!! Weird Mr Wallaker who lives up the street caught me buying condoms from the chemist. Gave me a very funny look. Especially when I asked him which way round they went on!!!

  11.58pm The Roxter is a dream boat. Chiselled jaw, firm six-pack. I think I might have just died myself!!! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!! I heart the Roxter.

  14 June 2013

  Designer dresses bought: 8; style: overwrought

  8.01am No text from the Roxter. Panic.

  8.02am Still no text from the Roxter. DOUBLE PANIC!!!

  8.03am Text from the Roxter saying he had left his phone downstairs which is why he hadn’t texted earlier. PHEW.

  10.35am Catch sight of myself in the mirror. Think, ‘I’m 51 years old FFS. I’m too old to be writing like a hyperactive ingenue’. Phone editor to say wouldn’t it more interesting to write something rather deeper and more reflective about grief and getting old. Feel I have rather more to say about that. Editor says no. ‘Readers like you just the way you are. But if you want to say you miss Darcy a bit, that is OK.’

  10.57am I miss Darcy. Don’t we all.

  3 August 2013

  Ferraris bought for the Roxter: 3; sense of reality: nearly all gone

  11.09am CATASTROPHE. The NITS are back. Worried they might have hopped from me on to the Roxter.

  12.33pm Have a near Brazilian!

  2.22pm A gnawing sense that the ongoing NIT gag is falling flat. Face it. No one really gives that much of a toss about them. Editor says that all the Mums at her daughter’s North London private school are obsessed with them. So NITS stay.

  3.51pm Call from agent. Hedda Gabbler screenplay not going to work after all. Could I try Madame Ovary instead? Heart sinks.

  5.33pm Weird Mr Wallaker gives me a funny look when I ask him if he has any moisturiser I could use as my bush is very red after waxing.

  9.38pm Just had five – FIVE – shags with the Roxter. He could be the ONE!! ‘I heart you Jonesy,’ he texts me while we are in bed. Am beginning to wonder if this relationship is going anywhere.

  17 November 2013

  Bottles of vintage Dom Perignon drunk: 23: advance: banked

  3.28pm GUESS WHAT! Mr Wallaker isn’t so weird as I thought.

  He’s my age, single and a bit of a hero like Darcy.

  3.29pm Mr Wallaker has moved in with me!!!!!

  Digested read, digested: Bridget’s arrested development.

  LAD LIT

  A Long Way Down

  by Nick Hornby (2005)

  Martin: Can I explain why I wanted to jump off a tower block? I’d been to prison for having sex with a 15-year-old girl – yeah, I know what you’re going to say, but she told me she was older – I’m separated from my wife and kids, I lost the big TV job and all in all I’m a bit unhappy.

  Maureen: I picked New Year’s Eve because it seemed like a good idea. I told Matty I was going to a party, but he looked blank.

  Jess: Like, I was at this party looking for Chas who had dumped me, like, and I remembered the block was called Topper’s Tower, so I, like, thought, whateffer.

  Martin: These two women appeared next to me and we sat and chatted for a bit about jumping and then this other bloke turned up.

  JJ: I don’t know why I decided to kill myself, really. Sure my girlfriend had left me and my rock band had split up, but this was everyday stuff for a superannuated everybloke from north London. In the end, I guess it was just that I didn’t think the book would work with only three voices as we’d never sell the film rights unless I pitched up, too.

  Maureen: After so many years of looking after my disabled son by myself, it was quite nice to get together and chat about killing ourselves.


  Jess: Like, I persuaded them dull fuckers to go to this party where I thought that bastard Chas would be.

  Martin: I might have guessed that idiot Chas would recognise me and tell the papers that we had all met up on Topper’s Tower.

  Jess: Fuckin’ fantastic. I persuaded some fick journo it was an angel wot had persuaded us not to jump and she’s like given us all loadsa money for the story.

  Maureen: It was quite nice to talk to a journalist. I still feel a bit guilty about Matty, though.

  JJ: I haven’t said anything for a while, so I thought I’d check in. I’ve been making lists of pop groups, you know. I find that very interesting.

  Martin: Oh God, the story just gets worse. It turns out that Jess is dead posh and is the daughter of the education minister. I should have topped myself when I had the chance.

  Jess: Like, I hate my parents. And they, like, hate me too. It’s soo unfair. I suggested we all spend the dosh going to Tenerife, and I got well smashed for a week.

  Maureen: I loved Tenerife. I’d never been abroad before.

  JJ: Jess arranged for us all to meet up with the important people in our lives. I now go busking and am happier than I’ve ever been.

  Martin: I realised my life was shallow and I now help disadvantaged kids to read. It’s so cathartic, I’m never going to think about killing myself again.

  Jess: I’ve got a new boyfriend and I adore my parents.

  Maureen: I go to quiz nights and we’re all going to remain really good friends.

  Digested read, digested: The only genuine despair is the reader’s.

  My Favourite Wife

  by Tony Parsons (2008)

  The first thing that struck him was the noise. The people. The contrasts. The clichés. ‘Welcome to our new life in Shanghai,’ Bill said, pulling his wife, Becca, and their three-year-old daughter, Holly, close to him.

  The alarm went off at six the next morning. Bill groaned. Surely no one in their right mind started a new job the day after arriving in a new country? But then he remembered. He wasn’t in his right mind. He was in Tony’s. A parallel universe of unbelievable stupidity. And short sentences.

  And paragraphs.

  Becca felt sad as she left Holly at the school. Less than a day in China. And she had never felt so alone. I’d better get used to it, she sighed. After all, it had been her idea for them to get out of London after Holly had been diagnosed with asthma. It was just that she’d hoped that at least one person might have told her that Shanghai was even more polluted.

  ‘Good to have you on board, Bill,’ said Devlin. ‘We do things differently out here. Play your cards right and you’ll make partner in two years.’

  This, Bill thought to himself, was what it was all. About. Back home, his accent, his chip on his shoulder and his obvious lack of intelligence had counted. Against him as a lawyer. But here, he could earn enough. To buy a house in Islington.

  Becca and Bill watched the single women polish their new cars outside their gated community in Paradise Gardens. ‘They look like kept women,’ Becca exclaimed in surprise.

  ‘Modern China is a complex country,’ Bill replied, sagely. ‘And everyone has to make difficult choices.’

  ‘Well, they seem like whores to me.’

  ‘I suppose they are,’ he nodded, knowing he could never be. The type of man who had a mistress.

  Or could he?

  He remembered Li Jin Jin, the pale Chinese woman he had met briefly. And felt a pang. Of guilt.

  ‘Listen, Bill,’ said Devlin. ‘We’re working on a big development. It involves a stereotypical, ruthless Chinese businessman and oppressed peasants. People are going to lose their limbs. So don’t go squeamish on me.’

  Bill gulped. China really was another world. But wasn’t it good that some of the Chinese were getting rich? And didn’t all new economies need to make compromises?

  ‘I’m lonely and my dad’s ill,’ Becca sobbed. ‘I’m going home with Holly for a while.’

  Bill nodded. He would be lonely. But it was the right thing to do. And he wasn’t the type to have an affair. Was he?

  He held Jin Jin in his arms. He wasn’t like the others. He truly loved her. And she loved him. Though they both knew she came second. He checked his mobile. Twelve missed calls.

  ‘Your dad’s dying,’ Becca said.

  He felt guilty. He was the loneliest man in the world.

  ‘I’m glad we could have some catharsis,’ he said as he sat by his father’s deathbed. ‘I’m going to be a proper husband and father now.’

  And he meant it. But it wasn’t easy. Even when Becca rejoined him in Shanghai.

  ‘How’s your Chinese whore?’ Devlin’s wife shouted, drunkenly.

  ‘I’m never going to speak to you again,’ Becca shouted. ‘But I love you,’ Bill pleaded. ‘OK, I forgive you. For Holly’s sake.’

  ‘Thank you, darling. But before we can be a happy family again, there are things I must do first. There is the long goodbye with Jin Jin involving a nauseating attempt at pathos with a breast cancer scare. Then I must get fired from my job for exposing corruption in China.’

  ‘Then do you promise that this nightmare will finally be over?’

  ‘That’s no way to refer to my book,’ Tony snapped.

  Digested read, digested: Our least favourite writer.

  Meltdown by Ben Elton (2009)

  Jimmy Corby graduated from Sussex in 1993 with five friends: Robbo, David, Rupert, Henry and Lizzie. They were to remain friends throughout the 90s and most of the noughties. Mates. Proper mates. Through good and bad sentences. Except there were no good sentences.

  Jimmy was tired. Really tired. Dog tired. Tired as a very tired person. How was he going to provide for Monica and the kids? Eighteen months earlier the stars had twinkled like diamonds. ‘Rupert’s just saved me a fortune,’ Jimmy had said to Monica. ‘Tipped me off that Caledonian Granite is going belly up.’ ‘Haven’t you got a more imaginative alternative for Northern Rock?’ Monica had replied. ‘Apparently not.’ ‘Well it sounds like insider dealing, and as I am the book’s voice of morality, I think you should give it all to charity.’ ‘Tell you what, babe,’ he had laughed, ‘I’ll put it all on the gee-gees.’

  Henry blew-dry his blond curls. He needed to make a good impression now he was a junior minister. ‘Maybe I can claim the hairdryer on expenses,’ he thought. ‘Is the whole book going to be this telegraphed?’ his wife Jane groaned. ‘It’s by Ben Elton,’ he snapped.

  ‘Mwa-ha-ha-ha,’ Rupert cackled, in the manner of the archetypal villain. ‘Everyone else is broke but I’m fine, thanks to my Fred the Shred pension and my Tony Blair knighthood.’

  Even Monica was astonished by the banality of both the insight into the banking crisis and the characterisation, but she wasn’t going to miss out on her own clichés. ‘Everyone has been very greedy and naughty,’ she observed.

  ‘Oh, Mon,’ Jimmy wept. ‘You are so right, and I regret not saving sensibly while I was making a fortune as a banker. Now I’m out of a job, it’s very hard to keep up the mortgage on our huge house in Notting Hill, and my property investment has gone belly-up. We might have to take Toby out of private school.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Monica said, ‘luckily, Lizzie has agreed to lend us £2m.’

  ‘Robbo and I have always been careful with money and put all our savings into premium bonds,’ Lizzie said. ‘And our luxury cushion shop is still making millions.’ ‘Hooray. We’re saved,’ Monica and Jimmy smiled.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Lizzie wept. ‘Robbo has just killed himself by driving into a wall and it turns out he inexplicably invested all our money with a character who resembles Bernie Madoff, so now we’re broke too! Though obviously there was no connection between him crashing the car and our being broke, because that would be morally complex.’

  ‘That’s awful,’ said Jimmy. ‘Toby will have to leave private school after all.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Toby replied. ‘Some state schools are a
wfully good, and I will do good works by befriending the son of a Somali asylum seeker.’

  ‘You know,’ said Monica, who never missed an opportunity to be annoyingly sanctimonious. ‘I can’t help feeling that we lost our moral compass while we were making all that money.’

  ‘At least we didn’t resort to writing We Will Rock You,’ Jimmy replied.

  ‘Fancy that,’ said Henry. ‘The expenses scandal has broken and I’ve had to resign my seat.’

  ‘Fancy that,’ said Rupert. ‘Everyone hates me, I’m being investigated for insider trading and I’ve had to leave the country.’

  ‘We believe your husband committed suicide to give you an insurance payout,’ Inspector Knacker growled to Monica.

  ‘No I didn’t,’ yelled Jimmy, appearing from nowhere. ‘That was some crap arson subplot to make you think the book was more interesting than it is. I’ve decided to be a plumber.’

  ‘My man of the people,’ Monica drooled, the only person apart from Jimmy who had failed to notice bankers were now paying themselves huge bonuses again.

  ‘And the bet I made two years ago has won me £5tn. But I’m giving it to charity. Which is more than Ben will do with the proceeds of this trash.’

  Digested read, digested: Totally bankrupt.

  Round the Bend

  by Jeremy Clarkson (2012)

  There are many ways to tell if someone is a bit thick. You can ask them if they believe in global warming. You can ask them if they live in Newcastle. But there’s another, easier way of establishing whether someone is two spanners short of a tool box. You can ask them if they are a presenter of Top Gear. Which brings me nicely to the Subaru Impreza. Who but an idiot would pay £25,000 for a car that comes with fewer toys than an Ethiopian birthday boy?

  The Scottish chief constable recently lambasted me for encouraging everyone to drive fast. My only crime? I like Lamborghinis. He would too if he could afford one. But as he can’t, he wants to spoil my fun. It’s killjoys like him that are turning Britain’s roads into a haven for health and safety geriatrics. If there’s one thing that would improve my life more than being able to burn up the M40 at 135 mph, it would be having the freedom to take out a few cripples in wheelchairs along the way.