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Post by ripper on Nov 22, 2015 16:31:17 GMT
It is a very funny book, Pulphack, with Beaver probably being the pick of the main characters. I've read a few of the series and don't remember Beaver, Dennis, Arthur et al turning up again, which is a pity. Joan's increasingly forced cry of "Isn't it fun" had me in stitches, plus the fate of the cat and how the policeman breaks the news that it hadn't been buried deep enough was very funny. I did wonder if 'Sailing' was written as a novel separate from the 'Coarse' series and the publisher decided to shoehorn it into the series anyway. Not that it makes much difference as it is a fine read. I saw the memoirs that Green had written and wouldn't mind reading them sometime. I remember the 'Haggard' TV series from the 80s and was so surprised when I found out that it was based on Green's work as I had just associated him with the 'Coarse' series.
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Post by pulphack on Nov 22, 2015 17:34:35 GMT
Apparently the Squire Haggard book began as part of the Peter Simple column that Green was then writing and editing for the Daily Telegraph, and it just sort of grew and grew from there. It is a very funny book that I regret parting with, and it's not been easy to find again. I suspect that you may be right, and he submitted ... Sailing as a novel, and then got told it would be a Coarse entry as the series had some commercial legs. It's always been easier to sell comedy books that were bits and bobs rather than novels (unless your name is PG Wodehouse, of course!). Anyway, that would account for it having none of the recurring characters of the other books.
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Post by ripper on Nov 23, 2015 11:37:22 GMT
It is puzzling why exactly the Squire Haggard book is quite so expensive. As there was a TV series tie-in, one would have thought that there would have been a reasonably large print run, and in book terms it wasn't too long ago, so surely a fair few examples would still be around, but internet book prices seem to often have no rhyme or reason behind them. I never managed to read any of the columns he wrote for the DT. I don't know if he ever wrote for 'Punch' but his style would have fitted nicely into that publication. My local library had a subscription and I read it throughout the late 70s and 80s but I don't remember seeing his name in it.
I really like the 'Coarse' series by Green, but if 'Sailing' is anything to go by I would like to have seen more comic novels by him.
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Post by pulphack on Nov 24, 2015 5:23:17 GMT
It is odd - in the 70's there was a hardback and paperback from Hutchinson/Arrow (as you would expect from Green's regular publisher), then a tie-in from Yorkshire TV (the most expensive and rarest, it seems), and finally the Prion edition which also seems harder to find than the 70's edition, even though it was only published in 2001 and was part of the humour classics series that seemed to turn up in remainder shops everywhere. Mind you, we've all banged on about the vagaries of internet booksellers on here, and I was reminded of this yesterday when a chum told me about a pre-war Nigel Balchin novel he'd picked up for £18 in excellent nick, not believing his luck as other dealers wanted anything from £60 to0 £850 for it! It's rare, I know, but are there really that many Nigel Balchin fans out there, let alone those with a grand to spare??
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Post by ripper on Nov 24, 2015 17:38:29 GMT
When books are priced at those kinds of levels I always wonder if anyone actually buys them. I was staggered to see a copy of Haggard going on a well-known internet shopping site for over £2,000.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 19, 2017 17:47:42 GMT
My finely-tuned spidy sense told me to drag festering carcass to Brick Lane this morning for a result. Sure enough ... Michael Green- The Art Of Even Coarser Rugby (Arrow, 1969: originally Hutchinson, 1963) Blurb: You could say that Even Coarser Rugby takes over from where The Art Of Coarse Rugby left off. Commencing with the Easter Tour, when hotel managers live in a state of siege and team captains kick their way out of locked wardrobes, Michael Green continues with a searching investigation of every aspect of the game, from sex in the selection committee to senility in the scrum, concluding with the saga of Rodney and Fiona, that supremely nonsensical couple of with-it young things whose on-off romance has brightened many a Sunday afternoon for Michael Green readers.You're right. My finely-tuned spidy sense is taking the piss out of me.
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Post by helrunar on Feb 20, 2017 1:11:56 GMT
For anyone interested, I will park this here: www.moon-books.net/books/coarse-witchcraft-trilogyThese books have started to circulate in US Witchcraft circles--nobody to whom I have spoken over here is aware of the origins of the concept of "coarse" sport or other activity (drinking, furniture moving, snooker etc). This is a fun thread. I will just comment that while these books by "Suzanne Ruthven" aka "Melusine Draco" are good fun, especially the first book, I personally didn't find much trace of "higher Craft teaching" within the pages. There were a couple of scenes in pubs that sound like the kind of thing that would fit right in with the milieu of the Michael Green books, however. The third "book" is a rather poignant sketch (basically novella length) of how one of the main characters attempts to cope when her husband has died suddenly. cheers, H.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 22, 2017 19:13:17 GMT
For anyone interested, I will park this here: www.moon-books.net/books/coarse-witchcraft-trilogyThese books have started to circulate in US Witchcraft circles--nobody to whom I have spoken over here is aware of the origins of the concept of "coarse" sport or other activity (drinking, furniture moving, snooker etc). This is a fun thread. I will just comment that while these books by "Suzanne Ruthven" aka "Melusine Draco" are good fun, especially the first book, I personally didn't find much trace of "higher Craft teaching" within the pages. There were a couple of scenes in pubs that sound like the kind of thing that would fit right in with the milieu of the Michael Green books, however. The third "book" is a rather poignant sketch (basically novella length) of how one of the main characters attempts to cope when her husband has died suddenly. cheers, H. Sounds like they've more going for them than the tragic 'humorous' vampire volumes I've been stupid enough to sample (on the other hand, much vampire "non-fiction" is a guaranteed chortle fest). Back with .... Even Coarser Rugby. I figured the notable absence from the series of a Coarse Art Of Football suggested Michael Green had a down on the only game worth bothering about and his disdain is laid bare - OK, "briefly touched upon" might be more accurate - in chapter 19, When The Leaves Fall. Too much press coverage, interferes with the cricket season, goal posts erected in the park, somebody threw a lump of mud at him once, moan moan moan. What have these people got against normal-shaped balls anyway?
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Post by pulphack on Feb 22, 2017 20:12:38 GMT
This is the thing about Mr Green, much as I like his work:how can he not like proper footy? I mean, rugby?? The balls are a weird shape, like Fatty Foulke (or the bloke from Sutton) fell on them, and then they PICK THEM UP!! Unholy. Simple as.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 23, 2017 7:47:06 GMT
This is the thing about Mr Green, much as I like his work:how can he not like proper footy? I mean, rugby?? The balls are a weird shape, like Fatty Foulke (or the bloke from Sutton) fell on them, and then they PICK THEM UP!! Unholy. Simple as. And who could forget when Olive fell on the ball in classic On The Buses episode, The Football Match (filmed at Dulwich Hamlet's FC's Champion's Hill!)? Comedy gold! Seems to me , Wayne Shaw, aka the big-boned "bloke from Sutton," took the hit for his chairman's appalling lack of judgement in allowing the Scum to hijack the event in the first place (and imagine the regular club sponsors' joy when they saw the team troop out onto the pitch for their biggest game in nigh on 30 years with S*n Bet emblazoned across the front of their shirts ). No S*n involvement, no will-he-or-won't-he-eat-a-pie? betting scam and a devoted - if gullible - clubman would still be employed doing something he loves. Tragic. Anyway. Now we've established that rugby is totally pointless, how about athletics, or as a friend so eloquently puts it, "Grown men running around in circles ..."
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Post by ripper on Jun 21, 2018 23:16:41 GMT
I was just browsing the net and noticed that according to Wikipedia Michael Green had sadly passed away earlier this year. RIP
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Post by dem bones on May 15, 2019 18:28:09 GMT
Michael Green - The Art Of Coarse Sport (Arrow 1976: originally The Michael Green Book of Coarse Sport, Hutchinson, 1965) Dedication One Dedication Two Author's Note
Why do we do it? A Real Man's Game Up for the Big Match My Grandfather Might Have Nearly Bowled W. G. Grace Portrait of a Coarse Sportsman A Mother's Lament The Golf Course On Tour The Art of Coarse Camping Collapse of Coarse Sailor Bitter Lemons Fiona Gets Those Varsity Blues The Coarse Sportsman on the Boards A Scent of Rum in the Scrum The Rime of the Ancient Cricketer Coarse Rugby and the Law A Coarse Sailor at sea The Seven Ages of a Coarse Sportsman A Coarse Sportsman's DreamBlurb: How do you recognise a Coarse Sportsman?
He's the one who, when the club receives a grant from the National Playing Fields Association, wants to spend it on improvements to the bar. He is enthusiastic - provided he is not actually faced with a game. He is a good lose - except when acts of God, blind referees or stray dogs can be blamed for his opponents' victory. He is versatile - which means that his incompetence extends to many more sports than one. In short, the coarse sportsman is basically made of sterner stuff than you or I. And you can spot his ill-shaped figure loping manfully around fields and gyms everywhere - short-winded, ungainly, the very backbone of amateur sport. This truly is a case of more of the same - Green even works in a chapter on Coarse acting. Rugger buggers predominate, hockey is a "cissies game" - at least, he believes it to be until participating in a violent mixed-sex match. As noted elsewhere, he's no fan of the only sport worth even thinking about. Not the least risqué - none of them are, not even The Art of Coarse Sex - but cover resurrects fond memories of Clive Rowland and Jenny Lawson's raunchy antics in The Sucking Pit.
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Post by ripper on Jun 12, 2019 15:22:40 GMT
I think my favourite chapter in this particular volume is 'A Mother's Lament'. Unless I am mistaken, it's a letter from a mother to a rugby club complaining about how her teenage son was treated in a match. Very funny.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 1, 2019 8:16:20 GMT
I think my favourite chapter in this particular volume is 'A Mother's Lament'. Unless I am mistaken, it's a letter from a mother to a rugby club complaining about how her teenage son was treated in a match. Very funny. That's the one, Rip. Seems Jonathan's first game for Bagford Vipers RFC was also his last
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