Dave Likes to Rant

I’ve just finished reading Too Much Information by Dave Gorman and cor does he like a rant. Well we can all play that game (plus others in his book).

 I was quite happily reading the book until I came across the following sentence ‘…in a small section that sits outwith the main text.’ I’ve only ever heard Scottish people say that and I’m pretty sure Dave isn’t Scottish. I made a note to look it up later, however, a few pages further on Dave provides a synopsis of his life:

1971: Born in Stafford…

1976: Attended … school

…

1988: Attends Manchester University but drops out after two years

…

He’s definitely English then, so why is he using Scottish expressions in his writing? I wonder whether he added it to his spellchecker dictionary – I haven’t I’ve ignored the little red squiggle above.

One chapter of his book rants about false advertising and that 1988 statement in his synopsis struck a note. On the front of the book it says ‘One of British comedy’s cleverest men’ but he dropped out of university after two years. So that hardly puts him in the same category as Dara O Briain (Maths & Theoretical Physics), Hugh Dennis (Geography), Stephen Fry (English Lit.) and Rory McGrath (Modern Languages). But it doesn’t matter because it’s in quotes and attributed to somebody who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Dave hasn’t been backwards in letting us know that on occasion he tinkers with the truth to get a better gag, but to claim ‘I can’t recall a single slogan from a single car ad…’ is surely too much. ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ has been on our TVs since 1982. As he has no interest in cars I can believe that he might not know it is advertising Audi but he must know it’s a car advert.

I can’t think of a single steel advert that I’ve ever seen but Dave can, and if I believe what he says it’s because I don’t go to enough (any) football matches. His chapter about steel adverts is asking why somebody who sells something like steel would advertise to the public at a football match and I have to admit I’ve thought the same on numerous occasions in the past but not with regards to Rainham Steel so my beef with this chapter is not with that but the penultimate sentence. After saying that if he wanted to buy some steel he would buy it from somebody else just to spite them he says ‘That’ll learn ‘em.’ – arghhh, I can’t put into words what I think about that, it’s as irritating as Americans using the word ‘bring’ when they mean ‘take’.

You’ve probably noticed there’s a picture of me reading his book above, I did wonder if I was allowed to print a facsimile of his book cover without permission but seen as Dave can’t understand why Google don’t allow film companies to show their browser in films when they make it freely available for the whole world to use, I can’t understand why I shouldn’t be able to show myself reading a book that I’ve paid good money for – especially when I’m fully clothed and not smoking a joint.

 I really enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anybody who wants a quick easy read and likes to say ‘oh yeah, me too’ a lot.

I’m off to the supermarket now to play ‘the birthday game’ and buy a large Toblerone.