Head on

I think I am allergic to Doris Lessing's books. I almost ran out of books while I was in Spain. Luckily I found a good second hand book store in Nerja, thanks to the tourist office. On the dusty well filled shelves, I found two books by Doris Lessing, but somehow I wasn't ready. OK, she won the Nobel prize this year, but I just couldn't face it. Instead I bought "Head on" by Julian Cope. This was the history of the Liverpool punk scene, as seen through Julian's eyes. He was in the "tear drop explodes" and the book ends up about Julian's experiences in the band. Although Julian Cope is now the "elder" statesman of cool and underground music, he sounded like an annoying twat when he was young. There was a lot of pages about him having temper tantrums. He seemed to really hate "echo and the bunymen." I now know a bit more about Eric's club in Liverpool where the punk bands used to play around 79. Somehow when he started taking drugs, he became an easier person to be with, even when he did things like rip up a carpet in a hotel.