Mrs Slocombe’s Pussy: Growing Up in Front of the Telly - Softcover

Jeffries, Stuart

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006551750 ISBN 13: 9780006551751

Publisher: Flamingo, 2001

Synopsis

‘The “Fever Pitch” of telly.’ Scotland on Sunday

‘Like Linus’ blanket in Charlie Brown, like breast fixations among men in their fifties, television can become an embarrassing addiction.’ But for most of us, sitting in our living rooms looking for an excuse not to talk to each other of a Thursday night, a million million miles away from moon landings and Cold War tension and Third World famine, it is this addiction to a queer little flickering box in the corner that has shaped our lives since the late 1950s.

About this title

About the Author

Stuart Jeffries works as an editor and contributing journalist for the Guardian. He was born in middle England in 1962, and used to edit the Walsall Observer’s children’s page.

From the Back Cover

"The 'Fever Pitch' of telly."
SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY

"The story begins in fuzzy black and white, with a warm wooden box, one crude chrome effect knob, two channels, one nation and seemingly limitless potential, and ends in pin sharp colour, with a cool metallic slab, one slim, sophisticated handset, 200 channels, innumerable niches and an inescapable air of ennui… This is as captivating an account of life lived with television as one is likely to encounter."
T.L.S.

"Whether writing about newsreaders as sex symbols (Angela Rippon's legs) raunchy adaptations of 'Pride and Prejudice' (spillingly implausible bosoms) or 'Brideshead Revisited' (privileged decadents swilling champagne and eating plover's eggs), Jeffries' scintillating humour conveys serious and thought-provoking ideas in this hilariously Proustian, witty, entertaining and wholly idiosyncratic study of growing up with television."
DAILY MAIL

"A cracking read, cutting a humorous, intelligent swathe through thirty years of British television. No mean feat, but, tie us up and whip us with John Inan's measuring tape if he hasn't pulled it off. Ooooh!"
MAXIM

"Like a teacher marking a star essay, I felt a strong urge at several points to put ticks in the margin and scrawl YES in the margin in big capital letters."
MAIL ON SUNDAY

"Unnervingly clever and witty"
INDEPENDENT

"Brilliant"
GAURDIAN

"Enviably funny and original"
EVENING STANDARD

Edition details

• Publisher: Flamingo
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0006551750
• ISBN 13: 9780006551751
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400