His reboundingness is amazing, and to be admired. As his father is dying, he writes:
Pa is very gaunt, weak and weary, and the hospice — though light and airy, with kindly, caring staff — is essentially grim. Of course it is. It is full of dying people. And some of them are very young. It’s heartbreaking. I left Pa to go to a meeting to discuss the new Tony Tiger promotion for Kellogg’s Frosties.
He’s proud of his place in history. He boasts at various times of having shaken the hand that shook the hand of Wilde, Brahms, Virginia Woolf, John Buchan, and Winnie-the-Pooh. He is thwarted in his hopes of physical contact with Nelson Mandela and Charles de Gaulle, but he personally throws up on Ted Heath’s shoes, watches Brendan Behan’s brother urinate on some valuable wallpaper, and declines the chance to give Frankie Howerd a handjob.
The death of Elvis puts Brandreth in elegiac mood: ‘I never met him!’ he laments, but adds by way of compensation:
I met Johnny Rotten in the lobby of the Midland Hotel, Manchester. ‘Oh, Mr Rotten,’ I cooed, ‘what an honour to meet you.’ ‘Fuck off, fuckface,’ he replied.
Well, quite.
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