Virtual book launch

We had an online launch for the book on the evening of 29 August 2020. About fifty households attended – it was lovely to see so many of John’s friends. We listened to contributions from the following speakers:

Matt Bishop, whose first novel The Boy Made the Difference, released 28 August 2020, has already sold out its first print run (the second is now in press: order it here or find/order it in bookshops). Matt read ‘The Knowledge’, a piece about London taxi drivers that he commissioned from John for Car magazine in 1994.

Mark Dallyn, a friend of John’s who visited Western Sahara and like John became a supporter of the Polisario’s fight for an independent Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. He read a slightly shortened version of ‘Polisario Stepping up Attacks as Morocco Completes Sixth “Wall”’, which you can read on this site here.

Laura Mulvey, John’s friend and sister-in-law and a professor of film studies whose most recent book is Afterimages: On Cinema, Women and Changing Times (2019). She read an extract from ‘Anarchy in Vitro’, which describes John’s stay in Kampala following the downfall of Idi Amin.

Laura also showed a short clip from the 1982 film Crystal Gazing, which she made with Peter Wollen. It features an off-screen cameo by John, playing himself. The film dates from the period when he was the London correspondent for French daily Le Matin and would regularly dictate his articles down the telephone to a typist in Paris.

Bob Cryer, actor, writer and family friend, can regularly be seen on UK television screens, as well as in his own short Professional Jesus (2019). His 2012 novel, Mrs Hudson’s Diaries, was co-written with his father, the comedian Barry Cryer. Bob gave a brilliant reading of two of John’s light verses, ‘Your Mum and Dad’ and ‘Femme Fatale’ (the latter can be read on this site, here).

We ended with a couple of very welcome reminiscences from some of John’s friends.

If you missed the book launch, you’ll be pleased to know that we managed to record most of it. If you would like to access the recording, please get in touch below.

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