But while sounding like the plot of one of Richard Osman’s supermarket bestsellers — plucky neighbours form a hilarious protest group in the name of good old English values
Osman’s writing the novelisations of Boulting Brothers scripts then. Titfield Thunderbolt, Passport to Pimlico.
Not that I’m going to read one or anything but nice to know all the same.
Tried to read the first Osman, gave up after a handful of pages. Utter shit.
In the same vein. There are two problems, though.
Firstly, they’re not in the same league. Those great Boulting/Ealing comedies (and in the modern era, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) are like fine clockwork watches. Everything is precise. Things get floated early on, that pay back later. It’s a real art, and I think one of the hardest things to do well.
Secondly, he has the same tired villains and tired plots that Guardian readers love, like property developers wanting to move out a load of old people from a home. The Titfield Thunderbolt is rooted in the absurdity of licensing laws. The villains in The Man in the White Suit (arguably the greatest movie for economists to watch) are not just the capitalists but also labour. Lazy, lefty establishment writers would just have the capitalists as villains but Alexander Mackendrick told the truth. Those old films are always seen as pretty cosy but there was a lot of subversiveness to them.
Richard Osman is just a bloke off the telly. Which is how people buy a lot of books. He’s a bloke who has spent his whole life producing disposable shit TV.
The economics in “Man in the White Suit” is Murphonomics, surely. The idea that if there were an indestructible fabric, everybody would only want one set of clothes is fanciful. Especially if you live in a climate as variable as Ealing – rain at 2 o’clock, bright sunshine at 3 and possibly a hailstorm at 4
OK but imagine that what you wear in bright sunshine is indestructible. You might still need 3 or 4 things to wear, but you’ll be able to keep them for a long time.
It’s a simplified version of reality but the point is that Sidney Stratton represents progress, technology. Daphne is the voice of the consumer. She’s sees this as wonderful. He is opposed by the workers (who perceive they would be poorer as less suits to make) and the existing capitalists (who also perceive they would be poorer as less suits to sell).
It is how many people react to job destroying technology.
Fashion exists to ensure that for most clothing become obsolete well before it wears out. I’m pretty certain my mid 1970’s flared trousers never wore out. And yes they would still fit.
“fancyful” is an understatement…
Ever met a woman who’s satisfied with just one set of clothes?
And of course I’m All Right Jack really took the piss out of both the unions and management.
Chance Of A Lifetime is another good economics/business management primer.
2 osman references today, telegraph has a ‘Real life Thursday murder club’ (it aint)
His PR team must be working overtime, new book out soon?
Years ago I recall a parody of the AA Milne poem The King’s Breakfast which included these lines:-
May we have some bunkum for the woolly folks he said
Many people these days prefer hugaboo instead
While struggling through one of Osman’s admittedly hugely successful books the words bunkum and hugaboo came readily to mind.
If they want plot ideas, the biggest evil property developer near me is the state, in the form of TFL trying to cram in massive tower blocks on every station car park they own.
Well of course. If they close the car parks, then they won’t have all those pesky customers to provide trains for!
They will, they’ll all be parking on my street. Until they charge residents for parking permits.
I’ve read them all, even the new one. They are funny, that’s all. Not literature, not everybody’s cup of tea. They are not really murder mysteries in the classical sense, they don’t follow the rules.
Ealing comedies are a mixed bag. The ones you remember were OK, but there was a lot of not-so-much. Sturheon’s Law applies.
Going to stick up for Richard Osman. Read the first one earlier this year. I found it fun and it made me chuckle quite a few times. Its a murder mystery which i’ve never got heavily into as a genre, the odd Agatha Christie aside. So i liked it and when i saw the cast for the film I decided to go and see it. And yes I was fully prepared for it to be heavily cut. As you’d expect there are quite a few sub plot lines in the book that set up motives/ back stories for the possible dunnits and indeed many were pruned in the film. But my favourite bit in the whole book they kept in…..and changed it to its diametrical opposite. I have no idea why. It makes a great character* into a crap character. Very disappointed that Richard went along with that change.
*Bogdan the eastern european handyman.