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Although it is traditionally the green tea of Japan, Sencha Tea can satisfy the palate of every individual. Read on to find out more.
Kobe Beef
People love the different Japanese cuisines that are cooked and served in the traditional style, especially recipes cooked with Kobe beef. These are mouth-watering, introducing exotic flavours to the mouth like you've never tasted before. Kobe Beef is one of the world's top grades of beef, produced in Japan and raised from the finest Waygu cattle. Read on here |
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| The Hell of It All |  | Author: Charlie Brooker
Publisher: Faber and Faber
List Price: £12.99
Buy New: £4.99
as of 31/7/2010 05:05 BST details
You Save: £8.00 (62%)
New (28) Used (8) from £4.99
Seller: John Morrow
Rating:  20 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.4
ISBN: 0571229573
EAN: 9780571229574
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A collection of misanthropic scribblings that tackles the issues ranging from the misery of nightclubs to the death of Michael Jackson, making room for Sir Alan Sugar, potato crisps, global financial meltdown, conspiracy theories and Hole in the Wall along the way.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 20
 Damn Good October 14, 2009
Wiggles (UK)
42 out of 45 found this review helpful
"The Hell of It All" continues where "Dawn of the Dumb" left off, collecting Brooker's columns in the Guardian from Aug 07 to Aug 09. The chapters are divided between his Screen Burn columns where he talks about tv shows, and his G2 columns where he talks about other stuff. I love Brooker's work especially his writing but always forget his columns are up on the Guardian website each week so seeing a 388 page book appear is always a surprise and a pleasure as I know I've got 2 years of Brooker's views to read first time. So seeing "The Hell of It All" appear suddenly on the Amazon website, I had to order a copy. And is it any good? Of course it is.
Brooker's views on tv are always funny and spot on, like his article on Bruce Parry in "Tribes" where he reimagines an episode based in Glasgow, or his potshots on BB housemates. There's also a fairly mundane article on his fear of spiders until at the end he adds a note saying he had to write this one as his first submission was vetoed as too gloomy for a Monday morning - the article posits the question "Why don't you blow your own head off?". The article is also included in full.
His best work comes in the form of the G2 articles where his descriptions of not caring about anything in the article titled "The Black Hole" are, dare I say it, profound, while the travel piece where he stays in an opulent Las Vegas during the beginning of the economic crisis contains a spot on description of Vegas. There's also a brilliantly funny article on Gordon Brown's dreary time as prime minister, a paragraph of which I loved so much I've typed it out below:
"Here is a man apparently allergic to luck. Nothing goes right for the Brown minister. He can't even pop onto YouTube and attempt a smile without everyone laughing and calling him creepy. And they're right. The smiles were creepy: they made him look like the long-dead corpse of a gameshow host resurrected by a crazed scientist in some satirical horror movie. It's Saturday night, live from Television Centre! The theme tune plays on a church organ. Your children shriek when he bounds on to the screen. As he descends the glittering staircase, one decomposing arm drops off at the shoulder socket, hitting the studio floor with a damp thud. Oblivious, he steps over it to approach camera one, gazing down the lens with frozen eyes, intermittently twitching that smile. Your screen cracks. Hot plasma leaks out. This broadcast is over." (p.351)
Charlie Brooker's written another amazing book where you actually prefer to read about tv than watch it. And great timing too as a fine remedy to all the putrid celeb biographies and cookbooks out any day now. Very funny, very readable, highly recommended.
Splenic Genius - with a Purpose January 29, 2010
jcmacc (UK)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
If you know anything of Charlie Brooker, you'll be aware of his many, many angry but incredibly funny rants at targets on TV but also increasingly examples of dumbness in the non-TV (real) world. There are few writers and broadcasters who can produce such insane levels of bile and hatred so often in such a skilled and drop-dead funny way. This is probably why he's co-written with the ultimate pitch-black dark comedy genius, Chris Morris.
What's less obvious to the casual reader or viewer is that Charlie Brooker writes with equal humour but infectious enthusiasm about the really good stuff on TV and elsewhere. Here's the end of a piece from "The Hell Of It All" on the BBC's "Life In Cold Blood":
"This is likely to be Attenborough's last major series: the final chapter in an extraordinary legacy. To change the way millions of people see the world is no mean feat, and he's done it with quiet assurance, humour and respect. TV can be many things. Nowt wrong with a bit of mindless entertainment now and then. But when someone with purpose seizes and commands it, it can also do this. Incredible."
That's why this collection of Brooker's writing works: light to go with the dark. The extreme bile directed against the latest twerp-fest of a Big Brother or Celebrity X Factor comes from a sense that TV can do so much better, it's not hatred for the sake of it, it's a hatred of lazy low standards when so much better is possible. This is hilarious savagery with a purpose.
Brutally funny February 17, 2010
Simon Ward (York, UK)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Charlie Brooker is a modern-day hero - a curmudgeonly, cynical, misanthropic git who hates reality TV, psychics and the human race in general. He's also has an uncanny knack of mercilessly shredding modern-day culture whilst being hysterically funny at the same time.
My first experience with Charlie Brooker was through "Nathan Barley", co-written with Chris Morris, which so brilliantly skewered the trendy new-meedja Hoxton types around 2005. Now imagine "Nathan Barley" in print form but with added vitriol and you'll get some idea of what Brooker's writing style is like.
Short. Sharp. Brutally to the point.
Like "Dawn of the Dumb", "The Hell of it All" is a mixture of his "Screen Burn" columns and more generalised rants in the Guardian covering (roughly) 2007 to 2009. As usual, he mercilessly skewers celebrity 'culture', reality TV, TV 'psychics' and those who sail in them - even better, in the minds of most right-thinking people the his targets are thoroughly deserving of his opprobrium and vitriol, and Charlie won't let you forget it. I'm not a big telly watcher, so the finer points of some his "Screen Burn" articles are lost on me, but that doesn't stop them being hilariously funny - I'd defy anyone not to have had at least one dose of hysterical laughter by the middle of the first chapter. His reflections on life in general are not only hysterically funny but sadly very true as well.
Best of all, since the articles are, at most, a couple of pages long, it's a good book to dip in and out of at random, say whilst you're sitting on the loo. On the down-side, it's not really a book you can read in a public place unless, like Charlie, your heart is a "black, onyx cricket ball" because you'll spend a lot of time laughing.
His other books, "Screen Burn" and "Dawn of the Dumb" are also well worth checking out and make perfect bathroom reading material. And get "Nathan Barley" on DVD while you're at it.
Charlie Brooker, I salute you!
The Hell of it All December 1, 2009
big homeless
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Great and classic from Brooker, delightful insight and cynical empathy.
Funny and great points of view.
Hillarious as ever June 25, 2010
Super Drumkit Dominator (Yorkshire)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This man is funny. And right about everything. Well, not quite everything. I don't know why he insists that 'Doctor Who' is brilliant, I've seen it. It's not.
This book is greatly enhanced by being able to 'hear' Brooker reading the lines out loud. He has a very distinctive 'voice', both written and oral and it's a treat. He seems to stand on a precipice ranting and raving and venting the bile from his spleen, whilst occasionally turning to you and privately expressing his insecurities. He is funny though, prepare to have strangers stare at you as you read this on the train, stifling laughs and snorting.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 20
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