Excellent and insightful book about significant places and events in British History. Written with the usual Maconie humour as well. ( )

Despite my (apparently) dismissive comments when shopping in a bookshop a few weeks ago; I did enjoy this book - it would be somewhere between "I liked it" and "I really liked it". What prevents it getting the full 4 points is less to do with the book and more to do with my reaction to nostalgia.
Maconie takes a nominal day from each decade of the 20th Century and in a series of 10 essays, uses that as a starting point to discuss British values. There is a lot in the book, the general themes include the (seemingly more popular) anti-anti-PC backlash, nice cups of tea (or latte), a good walk and a fair amount of Trade Union history, which I knew very little about (my knowledge of Hunger Marches was mostly from Elizabeth Gaskell's North & South), but I suspect that if it was a topic I was interested in it would feel woefully shallow.
However, the starting point for the final chapter was the 1997 General Election day, in Sedgefield there was a local politician, Tony Blair standing. I did vote that day, and for the Liberal Democrat candidate as some sort of alternative to the two main parties. I know I did watch the election results until some point in the night, but don't remember whether it was at home, or in the neighbouring constituency of my Mum's house.
The descriptions of Sedgefield though were a wave of nostalgia for me, I only lived there for three years, and the names of the pubs brought back whole chunks of memory... and Bolams! I lived on one side of Bolams, and worked on the other side in a plastics factory. The breakfast butty, a large bap containing a full english breakfast... mmm... OK, four stars :) ( )

This books has an interesting surmise, he takes one event in each decade and proposes how that has shaped us as a nation. That one date then spawns a further discussion and related events and he visits the relevant locations to see what traces remain.
I thought this a little more patchy than some of his other books; I suppose by nature of the way the book is organised it was always potential for that to happen. I think that in this book his politics colour the text more than I have noticed it doing in earlier books. So in the 90s, he rejoices at the Labour election, while bemoaning the fact that politics is, once again, the preserve of the elite and the privately educated. While he mentions that the 4 previous Prime Ministers had been from working class stock, he fails to note that they had also all been Grammar school educated - an educational option Labour have done their best to bring down. Architects of their own demise, one could say. Although I do agree with him that it is a retrograde step.
I liked the way that he visits the places to see the location for himself. I also like the way that the event in the decade is not looked at in isolation - it is compared and contrasted to events in earlier and later decades, looking at the echoes that ripple through history. And, best of all, I like the way that his day from the 80s is Live Aid. I know where I was on 13July 1985. I watched the entire thing on the TV, and I do remember it being a scorcher. 12 noon until the wee small hours. Dad stayed up with me to watch. It is, for me and my generation, one of those memorable moments; we know where we were, we watched it and it marked us. I was only allowed to stay up that late if I was doing something useful. At the time my parents made toys and they would save the off cuts of material to be cut into small pieces to be used to stuff the toys. It used to be called "cutting scraps" and there were always scraps to cut. Well I know that I finished cutting every last scrap we had long before it finished.
Some reviewers have mentioned a lack of accuracy, but I would dispute that it is error strewn. Possibly they had been corrected in the paperback edition I read, but those mentioned in other reviewers seemed correct to me (and I don't care if he got the footie facts wrong). Not, maybe, his best work. ( )

I quite like Maconie's writings - no Orwell he, but he's a genial and amusing companion around interesting places. But, lord, lord, the mistakes! Do yourself a favour, Stuart, and hire a competent research assistant, who could put you straight as to what direction Gateshead is from Newcastle, which bank of the Tyne Jarrow is on, how many countries from outside Europe played in the World Cup finals before North Korea did (even if you meant first country from East Asia, South Korea played in 1954), the dominant religion in Ethiopia ... I could go on. Actually, I think I will: the bridge used by the Metro to cross the Tyne, the name of the trophy Wigan Athletic were runners up in (NOT winners of) in 1973, the number of football clubs there have been in Accrington (you sure you're a football fan, Stuart?), Queen Victoria's first name ... The book even starts with a bogus quote from Mao Zedong.

Two stars off for shoddy research. ( )

Stuart Maconie comes up with a particular date, supposedly significant, in each decade of the twentieth century, then wanders around the country, stopping at cafes and loving everybody. Having read a few of Maconie's other books, I found the formula too familiar, and if, like me, you're a stickler for facts, you'll be appalled by some of the clunkers in here; from the date of the start of the twentieth century to the shape of Enoch Powell's moustache, the author rides roughshod in search of a good story or a humorous point. I quite enjoyed the chapters on the ascent of Everest and the 1966 World Cup, but the overall effect is one of hack work. ( )