The Drought no longer available in paperback and latest update on The Flood!

Last week I got word from the team at Pen Press that they had ceased trading, which means there is a good chance The Drought will no longer be available in paperback. I am working on this but it could mean the lad lit novel might only be available in eBook format from now on.

And that leads me on to an update about the progress of my second novel The Flood. Way back when I was planning a summer release but it's looking unlikely now. The good news is that I'm about 80,000 words in and hopeful to have the eBook published on Amazon within the next three months.

The Flood picks up where The Drought left on and sees our hero Dan experiencing a bit more luck with the ladies this time but how will he juggle multiple women? Only time will tell! There will be plenty more lad laughs in this one again - watch this space!

Top 10 funniest Dapper Laughs Vine video clips!

A few months ago I stumbled across a social media comedic genius making waves with his hilarious six second Vine video clips and I don't mind admitting that he got me proper moist! Dapper Laughs is the ultimate geezer; a proper lad in every sense of the word. He has a touch of the Jack Chatham's (from The Drought) about him and that his humour is right up my alley. He has already amassed an impressive following across Facebook and Twitter and just in case you haven't heard of him, here is a selection of 10 of his funniest and my favourite Vine clips...

10. Geeks hey??? (With Ben Adams)
This is a personal favourite of mine because it features Ben Adams, a stand-up comedian who I regularly used to see when I was performing on the open mic circuit a couple of years ago.

9. 1st Dates
Here is some first date insight from Dapper Laughs that all the guys will relate to. Sorry girls, but it's time to face the truth...

8. Thinks I'm gonna need a new gym
We've all seen those big geezer's showing off in the gym and no one puts them in their place like Dapper. Go on my son!

7. If Forest Gump lived in Brixton
Brixton often gets a bad press, but in recent years it has turned itself around and the people are now super friendly as Dapper Laughs found out.

6. Tinder Dates
As my old man says: "I was born too soon" and that certainly applies to me when I think about the joys of Tinder. This sums it up perfectly!

5. It's all about technique
It's a well known fact that bigger girls are more grateful when it comes to the loving so luckily Dapper has some cracking advice on how to get them moist. 

4. Had to get of the tube sharpish!

You see it all on the London tube. Luckily Dapper is there to capture it in all its six seconds of glory. Or is that morning glory?

3. Putting the rascal on her
What more can you say about this clip other than what a 24-carat LAD!

2. Pint please!
Trying to get a drink in the pub while the World Cup is on has its challenges so here is a cracking tip from Dapper to get the barman's attention...

1. Me and Ashley go back years
Even Ashley Cole gets in on the act. Classic Dapper.

Lad Lit Book Reviews: Dinner For Two by Mike Gayle

I have to be honest from the off and admit that I read this book quite some time ago. At first glance of the cover I couldn’t quite remember what the book was about but after a quick glance over the blurb I remembered the book fondly (Stop Press! Book blurb explains what the story is about!).

So here is the gist of the story – Dave Harding is a serious music journalist and we all know a bloke like Dave. They bang on about the most obscure bands you’ve never heard of and insist that if you don’t like the “indy” scene then you are not very cool. Not too dissimilar from the Rob Fleming character from Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity.

But when Dave finds himself out of a job after the music magazine he is working for folds, he is forced to make ends meet by writing articles for a women’s magazine edited by his wife Izzy, and before long he lands the role of Agony Uncle for a Teen Scene; a publication for boy-band loving girls. The problem is, Dave actually starts to enjoy dishing our advice to teenage girls and before long he is offering up his ‘expertise’ to anyone who will listen!

Then out of the blue, Dave gets a letter from a 13-year-old girl claiming that he is her father and his world is thrown into chaos somewhat, especially seeing as Izzy has recently suffered a miscarriage. The prospect of fatherhood had left Dave longing to have a child of his own, but now he finds himself in the unenviable position of being torn between the revelation that he could be father for a teenage girl he hardly knows and how to approach the woman he loves to tell her he has fathered a child from a previous relationship within weeks of them losing their own baby.

It’s an interesting subject matter to tackle from a ‘blokes’ point of view and as I’ve always found with Mike Gayle books, he does it with a really nice approach and tone. It never came across as trying to take itself too seriously although it always kept in line with the fact it was dealing with a serious issue, and it is helped along with comical dithering that a man would certainly be able to relate to, and probably a lot of women would recognise too!

This is Mike Gayle doing what he does best, and wrapping a very clever story in comfortable surroundings (the back story of Dave being a magazine journalistic mirrors Gayle’s own profession), so it is very easy to believe the character and the life in which he is living. What probably wasn’t as easy was tackling the issue of building a relationship with someone you hardly know while at the same time trying not to hurt the one closest to you.

All in all, it’s another notch on the lad lit post for Gayle, and fans of his of this style of genre will lap it up. It might not be to every lads taste but what is? If you haven’t tried Mike Gayle before then this is not a bad place to start!

Lad Lit Book Reviews: Casino: Love & Honor in Las Vegas by Nicholas Pileggi

Anyone who has seen the Martin Scorsese film Casino will clearly remember the scene where Joe Pesci’s character pops the guys eye out of its socket whilst squeezing his head in a vice. It’s fair to say it’s wasn't a pretty sight (pardon the pun), but if you are a die-hard mob movie fan then it’s a scene that is right up there with a horse’s head in a bed or asking if I’m funny like a clown.

Well if you were a fan of the film (or even better, if you haven’t seen the film yet), then make sure you check out this book! Brought to us by Nicholas Pileggi, the same author who penned Wiseguy which was the inspiration for Goodfellas, this is the story of Love and Honor in Las Vegas.

Pileggi focuses in on two prominent mob figures who went to Las Vegas in the 1970s with the instructions from the Chicago Outfit to run the gambling capital of the world with a combination of brains and brawn. Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, who  was one of Chicago’s top sports handicappers, was sent by mob bosses to run the casinos and skim millions of dollars from the profits to line their pockets in the process, while Tony “The Ant” Spilotro was the street thug and mafia hitman sent in to take care of any unsavoury business!

What follows is a story full of lust, greed, violence and more violence as Pilleggi delivers a knock-out blow-by-blow account of what Vegas was like during the mob’s heyday stranglehold of sin city; but perhaps most importantly of all it tells of the fall of the mafia’s grip on Las Vegas. A lot of the story is told through the words of Rosenthal and his own downfall, which starts to unravel when he falls into legal problems over his lack of a gaming licence due to his criminal record, his Showgirl wife’s addiction to everything that is wrong in her life, and last but not least the increasingly erratic and violent behaviour of Spilitro. 

It also flags up just how much of a crazy town Vegas was during that period. For example, Rosenthal’s answer to not being given a gaming licence was to star in his own TV chat show to combat those who had rejected his application. Read that again. That's right – he decided to host his own TV chat show because someone told him no! It’s basically the same as not being successful in a job interview so you decide to go onto Jeremy Kyle to air your grievances!

And things don’t get any better for poor Frank as his showgirl wife, Geri, spirals out of control on drink and drugs and then does the one thing that would be bloody hard for any lad to deal with – she shacks up with the local hitman and has an affair with Spilotro, who by now is playing by his own rules and is heading up the notorious Hole in the Wall gang who would break into places by, well, smashing a hole through the wall!

Evil doesn’t even do the word justice in trying to explain the type of man Spilitro was, but even for all his crimes you still can’t quite believe the shocking and gruesome demise he is met with, which probably says as much about dispelling the so-called romance around the mafia created by stories such as The Godfather that I was still unable comprehend the awful way in which these gangsters deal with their own.

My only criticism of the book – and it has to be said that it is a minor criticism – is that it doesn’t read as smoothly at times as Wiseguy did. Pileggi has done his research, no doubt about it, but there were times when trying to keep up with the narrative that had been pieced together by old interviews or FBI files wasn’t easy to follow.

But all in all, if you like your gangster stories, then you will like Casino. It harks back to an age where Vegas was not the adult theme park it has become today. "Today in Las Vegas, the men in fedoras who built the city are gone," Pileggi concludes, and whilst that is true, it still remains that one of the wealthiest cities in the world was built on the blood money by American gangsters.

The Top 10 Best World Cup 2014 Adverts!

Stop everything... The World Cup has arrived!
And this is not just any old World Cup, this is a World Cup in Brazil. Yep, the English might have created the game of Association Football, but it was the Brazilian's who made it beautiful! It's time to forget South Africa and samba the night away!

But before things officially kick-off this evening with Brazil vs Croatia, that well-slicked marketing machine has already been charging across the globe to that delightful samba beat. And seeing as my day job means I have to take in a bit of advertising from time to time, a few corkers have been flying around the office today! Check them out...

1. McDonald`s GOL! FIFA World Cup Brasil 2014 



2. Nike Football: The Last Game



3. The Sun's World Cup Advert - #DoUsProud



4. 2014 FIFA World Cup on ESPN -- Ian Darke Calls a Date



5. Nike Football: Winner Stays



6. Beats by Dre - The Game Before The Game



7. Adidas Commercial 2014 : House Match



8. Adriana Lima - KIA World Cup 2014 TV Commercial Ads


9. Hyundai Because Fútbol - "Avoidance"



10. Cristiano Ronaldo and Pele commercial for Fly Emirates and FIFA World Cup 2014 

Lad Lit Book Reviews: I Am Zlatan Ibrahimović

If Zlatan Ibrahimović could sum up his book in one word, I’m pretty sure he would call it awesome. After all, this is the word that Zlatan refers to himself as on no fewer than 104 times within the first three pages! And if I’m completely honest, I tend to agree!

This is much more than a football autobiography. Of course it charts his incredible footballing journey from Swedish outfit Malmö to the dizzy heights of European giants Ajax, Juventus, Inter, Barcelona, AC Milan and Paris St Germain, but the heart of this story is that of a poor child of immigrant parents.

Growing up on the tough streets of Rosengard, Zlatan paints a fairly bleak childhood in terms of poverty, where stealing bikes was seen as nothing more than an everyday pastime and imitating a police officer with a shampoo bottle to pull someone over (yes, he actually did this!) was merely just a bit of fun. Caught in between a bitter divorce between his Bosnian Muslim father and his Croatian Catholic mother, it was Zlatan’s talent as a football player that shone through and would act as he escape mechanism to a world that was totally out of reach for people on the estate in which he lived.

While other youngsters played football to the strict no-nonsense Swedish approach, Zlatan was more concerned with imitating his Brazilian heroes who’s videos he would study to perfect their wonderfully crafted samba skills. Even when parents at the local football club where Zlatan played started a petition to rid Zlatan and his selfish exploits on the football pitch, he was undeterred in his approach to the beautiful game.

It is a stubbornness and confrontational attitude that would serve Zlatan well throughout his career, if not making the odd enemy along the way. In the very first chapter of the book Zlatan accuses legendary Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola of being a ‘creepy control freak’ and later on as a man who was afraid of Jose Mourinho with ‘no balls’. That pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the book that pulls no punches.

Sandwiched in the middle of all of this are those wonderfully classic Zlatan moments of magic, mayhem and mastery on and off the football field. When a young Zlatan was informed that Southampton was interested in acquiring his services he bluntly responded with: “What the fuck! Southampton! Is that my level?” Or his poetic comparison of playing for two of the modern games greatest managers: “If Mourinho lights up a room, Guardiola draws the curtains.” And of course the modest Zlatan quotes that range from “We won the UEFA Supercup, I was awesome” to “An injured Zlatan is a properly serious thing for any team.”

But just like that other sporting great Muhammad Ali, who set the standard for could talking the talk and walking the walk, Zlatan backs up all of his bravado by delivering the goods. After all, here is a man who has won league titles at every club he has played at, including an eight-year winning streak that took in championships in Holland, Spain and Italy. So when this man tells you that “What John Carew does with a football, I can do with an orange” you tend to listen.

It is fair to say that I Am Zlatan Ibrahimović will whet the appetite of every football fan as it not only details a great story of an underdog rising to the very top, but it intrigues with tales and insight of some of the game’s greatest names. Added to the mix his youth and background makes for one of the best – if not the best – football biography I’ve ever read.

If I was asked to sum this autobiography  up in one word, I’d literally take a leaf out of Zlatan’s book and call it awesome.

My top 10 favourite The Wonder Years facts you might not know to celebrate the DVD release!

This week marks one of the greatest weeks in TV history! And I'm not talking about the fact that yet another Hollyoaks girl got naked in Games of Thrones last night (although that is and always will be worthy of a special mention...). But this is much bigger than that! You can forget the On Demand revolution and internet streaming because it is time to celebrate a good old fashioned DVD release! The Wonder Years has finally been given the long-awaited nod to be made available to the public to own forever!

Fred Savage made the announcement this week when he Tweeted "#WonderYearsDVD coming soon" with an accompanying image of the whole cast back together, and as if I didn't damn right nearly pee myself in a state of nostalgic heaven!

The Wonder Years is the greatest coming-of-age story ever told, and if you grew up in the late 80s and early 90s then you will in no doubt be in agreement that this TV show is up there with the best of them! It was a huge influence on me, including my writing and there are influences in The Drought for sure which will hopefully be recognizable to anyone who has read the book.

You can keep up to date with details about the DVD release at wonderyearsdvds.com but before you do please check out my very own mini celebration with a trip down memory lane with my Top 10 favourite facts about The Wonder Years that you might not know. Ah, the memories. Enjoy!

10. Does anyone know where The Wonder Years was set?
In a word, no! It was never really mentioned in the show where the Arnold family actually lived. According to Wikipedia, the show’s husband and wife co-creators Neal Marlens and Carol, Black based a lot of the stories on their own childhood memories from growing up in Huntington, Long Island (New York) and White Oak, Silver Spring (Maryland) respectively. But TV network ABC wanted the location to be the non-specific suburb of Anywhere, USA, to appeal to a wider audience. Some fans have pointed to the fact that the family car had a Californian licence plate number in one episode, while others say New York because of the New York Jets jacket Kevin religiously wore in the first couple of seasons.The actual house used for exterior shots was at 516 University Ave., Burbank, California.

9. The Wonder Years won an Emmy after only six episodes
Today our favorite shows seem to churn out an endless number of episodes per series (I mean seriously, does anyone care anymore how he met his mother?!). But The Wonder Years needed only six episodes to pick up the Emmy award for Best Comedy Series in 1988 and Fred Savage became the youngest actor at 13 to be nominated for the Best Leading Actor for a Comedy Series. In all, the show received a total of 70 nominations for various awards and won 24 of those including gongs for the outstanding series soundtrack, which incidentally is one of the main reasons why it has taken so long for the show to be released on DVD due to the sensitive issue rights of all the tracks used in the show.

8. Becky Slater and Winner Cooper are sisters
That's right, Kevin Arnold's nemesis and significant other (fans of Season 2, Episode 11 will get that nerdy reference I have just made...) are sisters! Not in the show obviously, but in real life. In fact, Danica McKellar who played Winnie Cooper actually had some competition from her younger sibling, Crystal, to land the main role of Kevin's young love. Even casting director Mary Buck admitted that "it was practically a tossup" as to who got the role, but in the end Danica got the nod and would even go up against her real-life sister for Kevin affections as Crystal McKellar played part of Becky Slater in 11 episodes. Perhaps one of the reasons that influenced the whole Becky Slater story had to do with the fact during the filming of the show, Danica McKellar had a growth spurt which resulted in her looking ridiculous standing next to the 4-foot-10 Fred Savage and forced the writers to write Winnie in as a background character for a short period to allow Kevin's height to catch up with her!

7. Imagine if Kevin had a touch of The Sopranos about him...
Fred Savage has built out a decent career for himself as a director and producer (he has directed shows such as 2 Broke Girls and Modern Family), but back when he was a fresh-faced actor it was another TV great in the making who nearly had the chance to shape and mould the direction of one Kevin Arnold. In an attempt to make the show more edgier, ABC asked David Chase (who would go on to create The Sopranos) to write them a script. Chase proposed an episode where Kevin ends up acting like Holden Caulfield after reading Catcher in the Rye and starts drinking coffee and smoking, but it was rejected in favour of keeping with the wholesome image of the show intact.

6. Paul Pfeiffer is NOT Marilyn Manson!
For a period of time a rumour spread like wildfire that actor Josh Saviano was indeed shock rocker Marilyn Manson. Of course this was ridiculous as Paul and Winnie getting together (nerds please see episode "She, My Friend and I"). In fact, Saviano, who played Kevin's geeky sidekick Paul, turned his back on acting and the entertainment world all together after the show and studied at Yale before becoming a successful New York lawyer (which was almost on the money to what happened to Paul as it was revealed in the final episode that he went to Harvard and became a lawyer). And for the record, Marilyn Manson's real name is Brain Warner. Yeah, doesn't really have the right ring to it huh?

5. The Wonder Years was a playground for future famous stars
Despite the fact that Paul Pfeiffer did not go on to become an Antichrist Superstar and don red lipstick and eye liner, there were plenty of other actors who appeared in The Wonder Years and went on to become familiar faces in their own right. Here is a few names you might recognise who all had roles alongside Kevin Arnold and co: John Corbett (Sex and the City, My Big Fat Greek Wedding), Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Saved by the Bell), Breckin Meyer (Road Trip, Garfield), Dustin Diamond (Saved by the Bell), Juliette Lewis (Natural Born Killers), David Schwimmer (Friends), Alicia Silverstone (Clueless), Jim Caviezel (The Passion of Christ), Giovanni Ribisi (Friends, Saving Private Ryan), Seth Green (Family Guy, Austin Powers) and Robin Thicke (plonker who cheated on Paula Patton - what were you thinking man?!).

4. And that Home Alone guy was the voice of older Kevin!
That's right, believe it or not, Daniel Stern - who played the hapless crook alongside Joe Pesci trying to outwit Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone - was indeed the inner voice and thoughts of Kevin Arnold. Stern also directed a number of episodes of The Wonder Years and appeared alongside Fred Savage in the movie Little Monsters before he went on to encounter another little monster in Kevin McCallister. And here is another little nugget for ya - Daniel Stern was not originally penned in as the narrator. Actor Arye Gross was used in the pilot episode, before the producers had a last-minute change of heart and re-recorded with Stern. And if that isn't enough Stern trivia for you, it was actually the voice of Stern's real-life son in the final narration of the final episode!

3. Winnie Cooper is hot
Like many a young teenage boy, I had a crush on Winnie Cooper (including Fred Savage who said he was "in love with her for the same reasons every other boy fell in love with her" before their relationship became one more of a sibling type bond and all he wanted to do was "irritate her.") But I digress... So it is nice to know that had my completely unrealistic fantasy as a 13-year-old boy that I would one day and meet and marry Winnie had come true, I would have been a very lucky man! And just in case you find this section of the top 10 isn't lowbrow and perhaps a tad sexist, another Danica McKellar fact is that she has a degree in mathematics and is a best-selling author. Hot and smart, the perfect combination!



2. Was Jason a bad an influence on Fred as Wayne was on Kevin?
Jason Hervey's character Wayne Arnold was notorious for terrorizing and generally setting a bad example for Kevin (so much so that the 'Wayne Arnold' character was ranked #7 in TV Guide's list of "TV's 10 Biggest Brats" in 2005), and during the filming of the sixth and final series, it was alleged that some of that bad behaviour had spilled over into real life when a costume designer on the show named Monique Long filed a sexual harassment charge against the stars. The case was eventually settled out of court but it brought a lot of unwanted publicity, and according to uproxx.com created a number of rumours that were completely false. Savage called the whole incident "a terrible experience." As for Jason Hervey, it wasn't always easy playing the bad older brother especially when some fans couldn't separate the fiction from reality, which resulted in someone once punching him in the face in a bar and telling him "I used to have a brother like you!"

1. Kevin Arnold kissed a porn star
Throughout the six seasons of The Wonder Years Kevin had his fair share of TV romances. Despite the fact Winnie was the main object of his desires pretty much throughout the whole series, he still managed to keep himself fairly busy with the opposite sex. Who could forget Denise the Grease, or Inga the Swedish exchange student, or the new girl Madeline Adams, or even Miss White (especially Miss White!). But the most infamous of all Kevin's ex-flames has to be his holiday romance Terri from season 3. And it wasn't necessarily that a 13-year-old Kevin lies to a 15-year-old Terri about his age that was controversial, more to do with the fact that the actress who played her, Holly Sampson, went on became a porn star as in such movie greats as Cheating Housewives 6. And if that wasn't enough, the actress was also linked to Tiger Woods during his cheating scandal! You can find out more about Kevin's love interests here.