New Statesman -- off-putting memoir -- June 6 deadline
 

No 4278
By Leonora Casement
We want openings for a book of memoirs that discourage you from reading on. In the 1940s, one winner began: “I am not going to begin this memoir with a pedigree of the Effsisees, or tell you the story of my great uncle, the bishop and the buttonhook.”
Max 150 words by 6 June comp@newstatesman.co.uk

Tiger Woods: "When I was a boy my father was always off putting."

Kim Jong Un:

"The first lesson that my father taught me is that the secret of a really delicious roast dog is proper marination."

Tony Blair:

"To tell you the truth..."

Tom Jones:

"Life, love, lust ... and Listerine."

Ronald Reagan;

Errr... I can't recall...

"The world of philately in which I spent my formative years was rocked by the transition from mucilage to self-sticking adhesives. I am proud to have been an administrative assistant to a mid-level glue executive who played a minor but vital role in the transition, every detail of which is meticulously set forth in the personal journals from which I have drawn heavily in creating this narrative."

Shades of Tristram Shandy, Roger-Bob. After an opening like that, I would buy the book. Expecting to laugh myself silly(ier) on every page.

Self-publishing comes good: via the miracle that is lick-and-sniff technology, and complete with colour prints and a description of each experience, enjoy fifty-seven fragrancies encountered by this sewerage operative. You'll believe you're in it.

.

"As I sit down to write these memoirs, I can but reflect that those who hold this volume in their hands will be doing so in order to lay it down as a doorstop, or, if the book is thin enough, to slide it underneath the short leg of an annoyingly wobbly table. And somewhere in this reflection lies a metaphor, the suggestion that an empty life can attain a measure of practical utility through the very process of writing it down. To begin: Ever since I was a boy, I never understood the popularity of pizza. I sort of like it, mind you, but most people seem to like it way more than I do, which is funny, since I do like bread, cheese and tomatoes. My wife thinks it's the salt, but that makes no sense since I enjoy olives."

You will learn here that I was born, but not the irrelevant details of how or to whom. Similarly, the act of authorship furnishes sufficient proof that I received an education not to require superfluous corroboration through childhood reminiscences concerning the eccentricities of the staff and students with whom I interacted. Over my private life, I make no apology for drawing a veil. Some, given my long career in politics and public administration, might be tempted to provide ‘off the record’ insights; my record speaks for itself. So as not to prejudice public opinion of the still active individuals and organisations for which and with whom I have worked, I will say nothing. Of those individuals and organisations now deceased or defunct, I intend less to speak no ill than not to speak at all. Of my times, Posterity must be the final judge. These considerations aside, I intend utter candour.

"When I was a young man, I fell into a coma that lasted twenty-seven years. I recall no dreams, no sensation whatsoever. Though volunteers occasionally read to me or held my hand in the off-chance that something was getting through, nothing did. For the next three hundred pages of this memoir, I will elaborate more specifically on my experiences during the first nine years of my coma."

"Before plunging in, do just tease yourself with my delicious chapter titles!
‘How His Holiness misread my intent and I forgave’… ‘Her Majesty’s demeanour on seventeen occasions, interpreted’… ’Those gibes repudiated in full’ (Oo, you know you’ve been itching!)… ‘Relative misdemeanours’ (need I say more?! I do)… ‘My children keep me grounded– and I return the favour!’… and finally– at least for this present volume!- ‘***My glorious road to immortal fame***’ (and yes, I’m humble enough to know I’m still on it!)
As a special bonus, this is the world’s first truly interactive memoir: I’ll be including all the questions fans posted on my homey-pagey-o. Yes, ALL of them!
-Of course I may not answer them here, but the probing curiosity of my ever-budgeoning (what a great word!) tribe of devotees deserves to be at least acknowledged, if not- and how could it ever be?- fully sated!
Joys, Huggies!"

OMG, I can’t believe I’m writing my autobiography! This is truly awesome! Some people might say that nineteen is too young to be writing your life story but I’ve crammed so much into my life already that I, like, owe it to everyone who has made me the celebrity I am today. Hold tight, because this is going to be a roller-coaster ride of a story about my unhappy childhood (they wouldn’t let me wear high heels in school), the trauma when my great-grandmother in Australia died, my X Factor audition, my heartbreak at missing out on pop stardom, my drink and drugs hell and finally my rehabilitation as a world famous Shopping Channel presenter. Yes, I was educated in the school of hard knocks but it has helped to make me what I am today. I am sure you’ll find this story uplifting and inspirational.

Barack Obama


Out of Africa.

Why did the fireman wear red suspenders? The answer, of course, is to get to the other side. And why did the chicken cross the road? To hold his pants up. You see what I've done? I've reversed two familiar jokes, confounding your expectations, and in the process they have each been given what I like to call a "comedic transfusion," the anemic blood of one proving to be the life-saving (or should I say, ha ha, the laugh-saving) elixir of the other. I am a comedy writer, though no one has yet to pay me for my gifts. What follows is the story of my life. Why should you read it? To hold up your pants, of course!

In 1974, I saw the acclaimed humourist Basil Boothroyd buying a spirit level. It's the sort of thing that's always happening in my life;, the vouchsafing to yours truly of some small but resonant insight into the lives of the great and the good. I'd feel remiss in my duty as a human being if I didn't stop to pass on said insights, each contextualised with an account of the twists in my own small career.

If you a looking for a well-written memoir with an interesting history to relate, then put down this book immediately. No, writing's not my thing, and if it were, I'd have nothing to write about since my life has been dull, and even if my life hadn't been dull, I'd refuse to boast about my accomplishments like some of those snooty bios where people say stuff like, "Oooh! Look at me! I was Prime Minister of England!" Or "Oooh! Look at me! I cured a disease!" I wasn't prime minister of anything and I never cured anything, not even a slab of meat, and I resent it when other people tell me they're better than I am. Bastards.

A little learning
 

‘To sleep, perchance to dream – that is the question.’ Little I dreamed, last year, to publish my memoirs, this; but life’s like that, overnight wringing the changes from yesterday’s expectations to reality of tomorrow. Besides: dreamed, or dreamt? Dreamt exists, but is it right? It’s such a funny word; there’s a sort of ghostly ‘p’ there (the opposite of a silent ‘p’ as in pterodactyl): ‘dreampt’, one can’t help saying, and almost beholds it hovering before one’s eyes, like Hamlet’s sceptre before the troubled Banquet. Spectre, I mean; witness what happened there? One of those Froudian spills, an elf in the brain! Dr Johnson knew all about it with his ‘queer old dean’ and such. Anyhow, I hope readers of these my three volumes (memoir sensu stricture, sundry sequelae, and commentary) will keep them beneath their pillows as companions for those hours betwixt sleeping and waking… ‘perchance to dream’ thereon.

When I was just a kid I used to go to bed super early. Sometimes, after I blew out the candle, my eyes would close almost immediately, and then maybe a half hour later I'd wake up thinking it was time to go to sleep, and I'd try to put down the book I imagined was still in my hands, though it wasn't, and blow out the candle I'd already blown out, thinking I hadn't. Little did I know that someday these memories would launch this, my 7,000 page memoir, "Looking For Time I Somehow Must Have Misplaced," told in the form of seven extremely lengthy sentences. This is sentence number five, leaving just two more, so hang onto your hats.

“Speak, O toothless one!” That incantation (uttered by a schoolmate as I loudly expelled flatus on my second day in Kindergarten) kindled my lifelong passion for the human anus.

Decades of study and toil paid off with my becoming a Board Certified Proctologist at age 32. Three years later, a series of malicious and unfounded morals charges led to the revocation of my medical license. This proved to be only a temporary setback; a blessing in disguise, actually.

Beginning in the steamy "back alleys" of Bangkok’s “wide open” sex market, I restarted my career as the world’s first Recreational Colonoscopist. Ten years later, with “Delbert Dingleberry’s Recreational Colonoscopy ” franchises in Las Vegas, Rome, Paris, and seventeen Middle Eastern cities, I control a multimillion dollar entertainment empire.

But, let’s open with an "in-depth" look at today’s Recreational Colonoscopy scene. A customer enters a Dingleberry’s center, and …

Cynthia Payne:

When police raided my Streatham home in 1978 they discovered a scene that would have made Caligula blush. Innumerable aristocrats, politicians, lawyers and television personalities were busy abasing themselves in some of the most sexually perverse ways imaginable, some taking on three or four nubile young women at once and shamelessly posing for Polaroids into the bargain. Looking back it seems incredible that I not only tolerated such behaviour in my own house but actively encouraged it! Be assured, gentle reader, that I now appreciate the wickedness of my former ways, and will not distress you with any further revelations of filth and depravity. The untold story of the Blue Peter presenter and the custard-filled wellies is now consigned forever to the dustbin of history; this memoir will deal only with my childhood in pre-War Bognor and my recent conversion to Christianity.

“The first five volumes of my memoirs covered, respectively, genealogy (illuminated by modern ethnogeographical genetic analyses, linked with prehistoric and historical milestones); the events in my parents’ lives culminating in successful accomplishment of my conception; details of my gestation, delivery and much else I have ascertained of those days in maternity hospital with Mother- enumerating involvement of staff, Father and visitors, with comprehensive reconstructed conversations; our homecoming to a farm cottage in the Cotswolds (shared with dog, cats, chickens, assorted rodents)- delineating our household sleeping patterns there, the training regime by which I mastered the potty, and early adventures through crawling to first toddling; fifthly, my progression to walking, acquiring basic but fluent, evocative speech (of which anecdotes abound!)
I now move on to describe nursery: the intense pangs of maternal separation (overcome); scholastic and competitive rigour (embraced); and my first dealings with extra-familial authority figures (problematic to this day).”