Going Off Alarming: The Autobiography: Vol 2

'In these memoirs I bounce all about British TV with such success that I wind up in radio. I will also be filling a few holes that I left in the previous decades. For example, I managed to forget in Book One that I had been shot. Twice.' Danny Baker's first volume of autobiography, GOING TO SEA IN A SIEVE, was a SUNDAY TIMES bestseller, acclaimed for its non-stop humour and anecdotal flourish. It told the exploits of Danny's extraordinary childhood and the wild living of his teenage years. Now, he is 25 and it is 1982, and he embarks on an accidental and anxiety-induced career in television - going off alarming. With rollicking good stories from what he describes as 'a frankly crackpot life', Danny continues this stupendous chronicle with irrepressible verve and hilarity. Dozens of TV shows - many of them lousy - give up their backstage stories, and Danny's extraordinary family, particularly his father Spud, react to the ride throughout. Game shows, talk shows, adverts and TFI FRIDAY are but a few of the unplanned pitstops along the way. Not forgetting the tale of Twizzle: the Dog Who Hanged Himself, Died, Then Came Back to Life Again... Clearly, this will be no ordinary showbusiness-stroll down memory lane.

About the Author :
Danny Baker was born in Deptford in south east London and has been a comedy writer, journalist, radio DJ and screenwriter 30 years. He has won four SONY AWARDs, most recently in 2013 for his weekly BBC Radio 5 Live show. https://twitter.com/prodnose www.internettreehouse.co.uk/

Review :
From presenting cheeky trivia on teatime telly to a disastrous panto sting, he's like a living poster of Kipling's If, happily talking over both Triumph and Disaster. ...his own talents, at least as a memoirist, are closer to that other driven south Londoner Spike Milligan. Going Off Alarming is quite simply the funniest book you'll read all year. Seriously. ...Like its predecessor, the book is a hoot from soup to nuts, easily as funny, as self-deprecating and as worldly-wise as The Moon's A Balloon by David Niven. If you have been unlucky in life, and have spent the bulk of it without coming into contact with him or his work, then this book is a wonderful introduction. What's it like? Well, it's like Tom and Jerry written by a Cockney Roddy Doyle on Prozac. But funnier. ..great company and a brilliant raconteur. Volume two of Baker's autobiography rattles along at the same delightful and dizzying pace as its predecessor. ..Baker loves a tale told at his own expense and they come thick and fast. He writes like he speaks, with hyperactive garrulity and a rhetorical flourish. ..there is something about Baker in full flow that is affirming. Book three will doubtless be out for next Christmas but, when it comes to the Pangloss of Deptford, you are happy to forgive him the indulgence. For comic value, go for Danny Baker's latest memoir. The funniest book Dylan Jones has read all year. It's the strength of the anecdotes, and welcome digressions from the narrative, that make the book such a delight. Any autobiography that opens with the author being shot in the buttocks demands your complete attention. This book made me howl with laughter