Heaven knows I'm miserable now

If you cast your collective minds back, ooh, at least a whole week you may recall me enthusing about ‘Where did it all go right?’, the autobiographical account of growing up in the 70s by Andrew Collins. Straight after finishing that book I got stuck into the sequel – ‘Heaven knows I’m miserable now’ – which continues the story.

Andrew Collins moves to London as an art student at Chelsea College, becoming in the process Andy Kollins, writing a lot of awful poetry and living the classic student life in Thatcher’s Britain of the 1980s. His experiences are universal – leaving home for the first time, living in a hall of residence and a grotty flat, discovering a rather confused political conscience, making friends, drinking and agonising over a string of fumbling romances, some more successful than others. Oh, and he occasionally does some college work as well.

It is as sharply observed as the first book, although with something more of a narrative thread to it rather than the random diary entries of his childhood. With remarkable chutzpah he exposes some of his teenage poetry to cruel light of day, in what may be one of the funniest chapters of a book I have read for a long time. Fortunately, perhaps, the complete text to ‘Lime, Lime, Lost in Time’ was not preserved for posterity.

Was he as miserable as Morrissey? You’ll just have to read the book to find out …