Bye Bye Balham by Richard Herring

Bye Bye Balham: v. 1: Warming Up by Richard Herring

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
On the 25th of November 2002 the comedian Richard Herring started to write a daily blog. His original intention was to use it as a daily writing exercise to break the writer's block that was stopping him from getting on with his work on writing a book, but it quickly grew beyond that original remit.

You will find entries about the minutiae of life in Balham, drunk people on tube trains, odd hecklers at gigs, the temptation of playing scrabble on a gameboy rather than working, comedic rants and flights of fancy that were to grow into fully fledged routines and musings on life, growing old and mortality. The book also includes the genesis of the game of Consecutive Number Plate Spotting, which I have now been playing for more than five years, reaching a pathetic total of 313 recently.

The original entries have been tidied up a little, with additional comments added with the perspective of hind sight on a failing relationship and a move from a cramped flat in Balham to a much too large house in Shepherd's Bush. Of course, you could always go and read the blog online, but I don't begrudge buying the book as a handy alternative to the computer screen. I wonder if these paper based blogs will ever catch on?

View all my reviews.