The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

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Book editing – who’s responsible, eh ?

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A stupid question for all publishers, booksellers and editors on this site, and I’m not having a pop, just genuinely interested. I have just finished reading a book called Dead Wake by Erik Larson; a very interesting read about the sinking of the Lusitania as seen from the viewpoints of the passengers, captain of the ship & of the u-boat and U.S, U.K and German governments. It’s well worth reading but why did nobody at the publishers point out that English readers don’t need to know how to pronounce Mersey and there were some other facts about the war and the last post which I would put down as general knowledge to a U.K audience ? Now, the book was written by an American and written for an American audience, but my copy was published in the U.K by the Random House/Penguin group. So, why no care about clearing up the text to suit a U.K audience especially given that they have clearly gone to a lot of trouble in designing a really good cover for the U.K edition. This is not the first time I have come across this and whilst I don’t really care about U.S spelling, not » Continue Reading.

When did it become cool to be Irish ?

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St Patrick’s has been and gone. Yesterday in London I came across a few plastic Paddies, the odd Guinness hat but not much else. There was a parade on Sunday, but anyway it got me thinking as a bit of a plastic paddy myself. When did it become cool to be Irish, in England anyway ? Growing up here in the 60’s and 70’s, being Irish or of Irish descent was not a thing to be broadcast outside areas like Kilburn. You tended to see the odd bus conductor with a shamrock on his lapel, we used to receive cards from family in Ireland but there was never much else. Now the reasons why this should have been so in England are pretty self evident but I’m curious about two things. Who started it ? Was it big Jack’s FAI (find another Irishman) team ? Was the whole Celtic tiger farrago part of it, the peace process, was it some marketing wonk from Guinness that turned the world green or a combination of factors ? Aside from New York, Sydney and the like, is St Patrick’s a big event elsewhere ?