CHRISTOPHER MATTHEW
WRITER & BROADCASTER
LOOSELY ENGAGED: Further Pages from the Diary of a Somebody.
Hutchinson, 1980.
Loosely engaged to the boss’s delectable daughter, Amanda, and newly promoted, Simon Crisp seems all set for success as the diary opens. Yet nothing for him ever quite comes up to expectations. His relationship with Amanda begins to flag – despite some pleasurable bouts of ‘Sportsnight with Coleman’ (her euphemism, not his!). He finds he is Assistant Group Head without a group to head. Even his attempt to join the Freemasons turns into a lifetime’s membership of the National Trust.
Whether he is dancing pink-haired in New York’s Studio 54 with a model called – he is certain – Ernest Hemingway, or wrecking the central heating system in a Moscow hotel in his search for bugs, Crisp is never quite the man he would like us to believe he is.
Yet, somehow, surviving the humiliations of literary rejection and Athlete’s Foot, the horrors of ‘cold turkey’ and jammed zips, he emerges triumphant to win his spurs.
Reviews:
Very funny excerpts from the six month diary of a screwball who believes he is everyone's answer to the man of distinction. Who could ask for more? Daily Telegraph
