Long Term Care Survey July 2014

by Ahca

In Soho, Paul Salmon, co-producer of the ghastly Britpack Russian Mafia caper Base Metal, is busy chasing his next project, schmoozing it - girls and not taking cocaine. In Pontypool, Dr Jane Feverfew is busy wooing her ludicrous students, fighting her leek-carrying ex and wondering what the hell made her come to a country where she can't even spell the name of her son's school. In Cardiff, the Welsh cultural mafia are busy quaffing Australian cava at the annual Cymru-Wales Oscar ceremony as they plan the disposal of next year's EU grants...Jane hasn't had sex for two years, but there are the same number of passable single men over thirty in Wales as anywhere that is, none. Her only excitement in life is a coy e-flirtation. But when she despairingly posts her mock-screenplay of a Spanish classic on the ResistYoof.com website (just to show the sort of crap that Yoof likes) Paul Salmon happens upon it in a moment of coke-fuelled desperation...Salmon lies, cheats and grovels to get the film "Green Lighted" as a Welsh epic, while also turning his lustful attentions onto Jane - who unleashes her secret, lifelong ambition to be a cheerleader or actress, not a bluestocking. As crossed wires, bad faith and wild ambition pile up, Jane dives blithely into the White Powder desert of actors, agents and W1 clubs, where old friends count for nothing, new ones count for less and the big, bad mother of all come-downs is waiting just around the next corner. As Soho is annihilated in a firestorm of drugs, extra virgin oil and fennel, Jane comes to her senses too late - or at least, too late for salvation to come from any but the most unlikely of quarters...James Hawes's fourth novel takes his not-quite-innocent heroine on a wildly comic journey from the eccentricities of Wales into the unholy Soho movie-world which he came to know whilst co-producing the notoriously disastrous film version of his second bestseller, "Rancid Aluminium".

Genres: Fiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Paul Lynch · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't really enjoy this book, didn't really seem to have much of a point and the characters were quite annoying. I actually left this book in the hotel on holiday after finishing it!

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read, moves swiftly along, with quite a few giggle out loud moments.

[Godzilla · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found it hard to classify this book - it stems from a film producer's desperate search for an idea. There are some comedic elements, some attempts at social commentary and lots of scathing attacks on the London media types.

There are some really good moments in the book, however, for me, it just didn't go anywhere meaningful. There are some pretty trite moments and plot devices.

The characters started off as quite believable, but then veered into parodies of themselves, and some of the actions and decisions were so fanciful the book should have started off "Once upon a time..."

[Dalila (Dee) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first read 'White merc with fins' by the same author and I liked it a lot because it was a fun book, but for some reason it took me a while to pick this one up. The whole drug thing didn't appeal to me at all and i was affraid the book would be dull.

I have to confess it took me a while to get into it and start to care for the main characters, but after a while it started to get fun and I ended up liking it a lot. It's funny and lighter than I expected with lots of stabs at film people.

I still feel like laughing whenever someone mentions artichokes.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

James Hawes is a funny writer and he captures beautifully the facile nature of the beautiful people that inhabit the british film world the hangers on and the movers and shakers and the deal makers.
A blitz of Cocaine, sundowners and people you really don't want to spend with. A heroine who manages get out before it all crashes very much like the Cinema orange advert where the idea for a film becomes so far from its origins it turns into a stinker luckily this book redeems itself if the character don't.

[Richard Nicholson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible. Terrible plot, terrible dialogue, terrible prose.

[Etan Ilfeld · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious that parodies the media creators in the UK.