The Best Funny Diary Poems Ever
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Ok, I get it: it's a funny story, the characters don't have to be realistic, or consisten Not halfway through the book and I just can't take anymore of this male Bridget Jones who reliably screws everything up and is deeply, inconsistently stupid (doesn´t know who Gaudi is!!??) just to sound funny. No. I simply cannot laugh at a pathetic nincompoop who deserves every bad thing that happens to him, maybe even more. Nor can I sympathize with him but with his poor wife (or ex-wife, don't know yet).
Ok, I get it: it's a funny story, the characters don't have to be realistic, or consistent. But they are so simplistic and predictable as in one of the hateful "Meet the Parents" movies. And even poor Gaylord Focker is more likeable than this Custard-Cream Monster who mopes and mopes... and writes GREAT poems.
The poems are superb. I LOVE Brian Bilston's poetry. That's why I bought the book. I enjoy them, so I will keep the book as a weird poetry collection... ...more
If I weren't sleep deprived to the
When you are in the slightly desperate state of needing a book which is going to make you laugh out loud on every page, the chances of picking one up are obviously vanishingly small. But here it is, I did manage to irritate the daylights out of anybody within hearing distance while I read this, which is extra points right there. It's hilarious, sad, clever and it is full of poetry that makes the reader delight in the obvious enjoyment that went into writing it.If I weren't sleep deprived to the point of general incompetence, I'd love to write a parody homage by way of a review. But I'm sure somebody else will shortly put one of those up on Goodreads. The closing lines of the book are a heartfelt acknowledgement of Sue Townsend. Yes, her Mole books were fodder for the boy who became the man who wrote this. But it is his own thing, and a wondrously entertaining thing it is.
An easy five stars from me.
...more I spent the book with an irritating feeling that I'd read something previously with a similar tone, but never identifed what it was. Given the ref to Sue Townsend a
I really wanted to like this book. I follow BB on Twitter and enjoy his poems. But the book? It was just too daft. Too silly. And the main character is a twit. Not even a particularly likeable twit either. The story felt contrived. The 2 stars are for the poems which were great although I'd read quite a few of them on Twitter already.I spent the book with an irritating feeling that I'd read something previously with a similar tone, but never identifed what it was. Given the ref to Sue Townsend at the end, I wondered whether it was Adrian Mole, but it's SO long since I read that I don't remember.
...more
Our eponymous hero, Brian Bilston, starts the year with the intention of writing a poem a day. Whilst that goes by the wayside some days, we are still treated to many poems of the very clever and mostly rhyming variety that I love. The poems form the first part of the entries in Brian's diary over the course of a year of numerous ups and dow
How on earth am I supposed to review this book? It's part fiction, part poetry, part diary. The sum of the parts though is, in my opinion, a work of genius.Our eponymous hero, Brian Bilston, starts the year with the intention of writing a poem a day. Whilst that goes by the wayside some days, we are still treated to many poems of the very clever and mostly rhyming variety that I love. The poems form the first part of the entries in Brian's diary over the course of a year of numerous ups and downs for him.
The brilliant thing about this whole structure is the way the banalities of life are turned into rhyming ditties and entries in the diary which are so wonderful to read. Most people's diaries would be quite boring I suspect, but Brian's life is just so fraught with calamity and misunderstanding that the banal becomes interesting, even though it's not dramatic. He just ploughs on hoping for the best.
He's a bit of a likeable fool. I particularly loved how Brian would enter a bookshop for one particular book and just had to buy a few more to keep it company. I'm sure that resonates with every book lover.
He's also a typical man. Subtle doesn't work for him so his tentative friendship with Liz, a woman he (literally) dreams about, is a bit slow to get off the ground. Even when Liz quite obviously asks Brian something where her meaning is quite obvious, for instance, if he would like a nightcap, she gets a monologue with the reasons why he is unable to, or even told that he is watching reruns of A Touch of Frost on the TV that night!
You probably get the picture that Brian makes a few mistakes during the course of the book, but it's impossible to do anything but like him.
The writing is so funny, witty and dry. I spent much of the book smiling, sniggering and giggling. I kept thinking that when I write my review I must mention this poem or that one but then I'd read the next one and think the same thing. They're all worthy of a mention, although I thought the excel spreadsheet one was particularly clever and I did enjoy singing My Favourite Words to the tune of My Favourite Things from The Sound of Music!
It's very difficult to fully explain the nature of this book. In fact, when I picked it up I wasn't entirely sure what to expect even then, only that I loved the idea of the unique concept of it. I was familiar with Brian Bilston's poetry from Twitter so I knew that that aspect was going to be good anyway, but the whole thing is just fabulous. It has a sardonic edge that really appeals to my sense of humour and it's just a pleasure from start to finish.
I'll leave you with my plea to you in poem form!
Grab yourself a custard cream
and settle down to read.
A book with more laughs
than legs on a centipede.
Diary of a Somebody is
a uniquely clever book.
Disappointment will surely prevail
if you don't take a look.
The End.
...more
The story follows (the fictional) Brian Bilston's resolution to write a poem every day for an entire year, a way of distracting himself from the pain of a broken marriage, an unsatisfactory relationship with his teenage son and an office job at which he's failing.
His poems are dotted th
If you like wordplay, puns and funny poetry, put Brian Bilston's Diary of a Somebody on your wishlist. I laughed all the way through it; the perfect antidote to the strange and anxious times we are living through.The story follows (the fictional) Brian Bilston's resolution to write a poem every day for an entire year, a way of distracting himself from the pain of a broken marriage, an unsatisfactory relationship with his teenage son and an office job at which he's failing.
His poems are dotted throughout the narrative, and each one is laugh-out-loud funny.
To read the rest of my review, please visit my blog.
...more
since I follow Brian on the Twitter 'hood
A few chapters later
I willed it to be better
But I parked it cos I needed some food
I gave the book another shot
A poet he is, but novelist he's not
More chapters I've read
Before I went to bed
Oh Mr Bilston, is this all you've got?
The themes of middle-age woes were familiar
But the way it was written was rather peculiar
A huge part of it moaned
And I inwardly groaned
But entertaining, so not entirely a failure
A male Bridget Jone
I wanted this book to be really goodsince I follow Brian on the Twitter 'hood
A few chapters later
I willed it to be better
But I parked it cos I needed some food
I gave the book another shot
A poet he is, but novelist he's not
More chapters I've read
Before I went to bed
Oh Mr Bilston, is this all you've got?
The themes of middle-age woes were familiar
But the way it was written was rather peculiar
A huge part of it moaned
And I inwardly groaned
But entertaining, so not entirely a failure
A male Bridget Jones, some people have said
And reminded me of some diarists I've read
And though I'm not a hater
(I still follow him on Twitter)
I'm leaving my copy in a free library instead
I have long envied artists who draw and sketch each day; who are able to transform ordinary visual experience into art – I imagine it to be a joy.
So here comes Brian Bilston, using his gift of turning the mundane, the everyday into a diary entry and/or a poem, using the power of wit and the ability to mine the language for puns and other delights. He decides to make a diary entry for each day of the year, in order to master and get over l
I read this at an opportune time. It really cheered me up.I have long envied artists who draw and sketch each day; who are able to transform ordinary visual experience into art – I imagine it to be a joy.
So here comes Brian Bilston, using his gift of turning the mundane, the everyday into a diary entry and/or a poem, using the power of wit and the ability to mine the language for puns and other delights. He decides to make a diary entry for each day of the year, in order to master and get over life's blows. His exasperated wife Sophie has just left him.
Life just gets worse. He sinks deeper and deeper into a state of lethargy, with only the cat for company, and his funny and sometimes subversive poems to lighten his mood. His focus narrows down to his neighbours' bin day and other habits. He finds it difficult in his depressed state to engage with his teenage son Dylan who visits once a week. Sophie acquires a dynamic partner, the paragon of all virtues, a man whose success does not stop him from doing good deeds and who inspires Brian's son with motivational quotes. As if life couldn't get worse, this paragon decides he will relocate to the US taking Sophie and Dylan with him - this, just when Brian was starting to bond really well with his son. His son is reluctant to go.
Brian's job has become increasingly tedious and opaque. (there are lovely pieces of modern jargon and office-speak). He is eventually made redundant. He never manages to read more than a few pages of the set book for his Book Group. He knows he will soon be thrown out. His contributions to the Poetry Group fall on unappreciative ground, while Toby Salt his rival is much admired and goes on to be published and fêted elsewhere.
This poem offends their sense of decorum and "poesie":
Love in the Time of Cauliflower
Please marrow me, my beloved sweetpea,
so that we may beetroot to our hearts.
Lettuce have the courgette of our convictions
and our love elevated to Great Artichoke.
Don't leek me feeling this way, my dear,
such lofty asparagus can't be ignored.
I am a prisoner, trapped in your celery;
Don't make me go back to the drawing broad beans.
We all carry emotional cabbage:
love is chard and not inconsequential,
but may our passion be uncucumbered
so that we reach our true potato.
Oh, how your onions make my head spinach,
reduce me to mushrooms, broccoli, defenceless.
Only you can salsify my desire,
and I, in turnip, will radish you senseless.
Brian is sinking into despair and becoming reckless. His funny poems sound like the cry of a clown - outward smiles masking a deperate state of mind. This is when the story turns into a murder mystery. Suffice to say that there are certain gaps in the diary, literally torn out pages, and that the mystery is resolved with the means of a poem. Neat.
This poem is about Oxymorons.
Alone together, for once,
I told her how I thought that –
in my unbiased opinion –
the incidence of oxymorons
in the English language
had been growing smaller.
That's old news, she said,
adding that it had been the case
for almost exactly ten years.
Things got pretty ugly.
But this, in itself,
felt strangely normal;
for ours was
a bittersweet relationship,
a civil war
of violent agreements.
I found myself annoyingly
endeared to her
whilst she thought
my puritanical streak
seriously funny.
Our contradictions
complemented each other
perfectly.
Same difference,
I whispered loudly,
but she, with a sad smile,
after telling me how
I'd left her speechless,
went back to reading
her textbook
on business ethics.
Finally, for those who like the playful, and the nonsensical that makes sense:
Not a Poem
This is not a poem
only a combination of words
broken up in such a way to make
you think it is.
Spacing is important
upper case characters
line breaks
that I have skilfully
manoevred on the page (note too the absence of
upper case characters
see how they make it seem
deeper somehow
it is still not a poem, though,
enough of this now.
The entry in the diary goes on:
What the hell is poetry anyhow? The tearing open of the heart? the baring of the soul? The sharing of a universe? Or is it all mere postrue and pantomine?
Ask someone who cares.
Honestly it's just a great read
Do you ever feel a book is just made for you to read it
Brian sometimes reminded me very much of Mark from peep show who I adore and they mentioned one of my fave films Donnie darko
Laugh out loud funny but also poignant
Very witty and I just loved it
Couldn't put it down but didn't want it to finish
5 stars OMG read this book
Honestly it's just a great read
Do you ever feel a book is just made for you to read it
Brian sometimes reminded me very much of Mark from peep show who I adore and they mentioned one of my fave films Donnie darko
Laugh out loud funny but also poignant
Very witty and I just loved it
Couldn't put it down but didn't want it to finish
5 stars ...more
I am a big fan of Brian Bilston and really enjoyed his poetry collection You Took the Last Bus Home (2017).
Diary of a Somebody (2019) is Brian's first novel and is a lot of fun: great poems, an engaging story, the absurdity of the modern workplace, poetic rivalry, dazzling wordplay, a love story, lots of laughs, and plenty of imagination.
An uplifting read
4/5
I am a big fan of Brian Bilston and really enjoyed his poetry collection You Took the Last Bus Home (2017).
Diary of a Somebody (2019) is Brian's first novel and is a lot of fun: great poems, an engaging story, the absurdity of the modern workplace, poetic rivalry, dazzling wordplay, a love story, lots of laughs, and plenty of imagination.
An uplifting read
4/5
I am sure that this is because when other people are laughing because someones fallen flat on their face I am going "ouch that must have hurt". In this case the person hurt is not the hero clown (who is seems blissfully unaware of how dysfunctional he is). Rather its his son who is hur I saw Brian Bilston giving a reading in Grasmere and he was very entertaining and likeable so I would have liked to have enjoyed this book but after about 30 pages this stopped and by 60 pages I was just irritated.
I am sure that this is because when other people are laughing because someones fallen flat on their face I am going "ouch that must have hurt". In this case the person hurt is not the hero clown (who is seems blissfully unaware of how dysfunctional he is). Rather its his son who is hurt when he forgets his 16th birthday, his employers when he hides his complete incompetence, a mob of suppliers who go unpaid when he wastes all his redundancy money. He never finishes a book for his book club. He robs the fellow members of his poetry club. He completely confuses the poor woman who finds him attractive.
Most of the poems are enjoyable in their cleverness (but not emotions).
The plots twist and whodunit at the end save it a little . . . but not enough for me. ...more
relationship to son, (post ex-wife marrying motivational speaker / serial charity challenge participant),
poetry club mediocrity, emphasised when one of members becomes a published phenomenon, then disappears and our protagonist becomes murder suspect
potential relationship with new club member, where his naivety and shyness sabotage his progress
add in multiple humourous mini plots - book club where he never finishes the monthly book, year
nice plot, recently fired want-to-be poet struggles withrelationship to son, (post ex-wife marrying motivational speaker / serial charity challenge participant),
poetry club mediocrity, emphasised when one of members becomes a published phenomenon, then disappears and our protagonist becomes murder suspect
potential relationship with new club member, where his naivety and shyness sabotage his progress
add in multiple humourous mini plots - book club where he never finishes the monthly book, year long efforts at completing Christmas cryptic crossword, neighbouring psychic who sees death in future, neighbour's struggles with getting the bins out for collection, his son's turnaround of youth football team with step dads motivational lines, corporate speak non-sense
interspersed with his whimsical poetry
...more
In Diary of a Somebody, our hero Brian Bilston (how autobiographical this fictional alter ego is we may never know!) makes a resolution to write a poem a day in his diary. Needless to say, like almost all new year's resolutions, he fails fairly quickly.
If you want a bit of light hearted relief from the world around you, then Brian Bilston is your man. Otherwise known as the poet laureate of Twitter, he has an uncanny knack of seeing the absurdity in everyday life and then turning it into rhyme.In Diary of a Somebody, our hero Brian Bilston (how autobiographical this fictional alter ego is we may never know!) makes a resolution to write a poem a day in his diary. Needless to say, like almost all new year's resolutions, he fails fairly quickly. Even so, many of the chapters start with poems, some of which (the real) Brian Bilston has previously shared on Twitter. Through the year, (the fictional) Brian documents his frustrating and pointless job, the rise of his poetry club nemesis Toby Salt, his relationship with his son Dylan (along with his terrible football team) and his would-be relationship with poetry club newbie Liz. When Toby Salt goes missing, suspicion falls on Brian and so the story becomes a mystery.
It's warm, funny and a total delight.
...more
I would have given up by September if it wasn This book came to me highly recommended and I started out with high hopes. January 2nd's poem Duvet made me laugh out loud so all seemed set fair. However, by the middle of the book the too-clever-by-half poems and incessant painting of Brian as a hapless Some mother's do 'ave 'em sad-sack began to pall. If you have a friend who's brilliant at telling jokes but who spends all evening relentlessly bombarding you with punchlines you'll know what I mean.
I would have given up by September if it wasn't for the mystery of Toby Salt's disappearance, which did inject variety, and it was only the need to discover Toby's fate that kept me going.
I haven't read other GR reviews yet but I suspect I'm in a very small minority. ...more
Titled however suggests that it is a diary and the content in it is also in a diary entry form, but the book is plot-driven. Brian has written poems on a variety of topics, most of which no one can even think of; though I don't like most of the poems.
Althoug
Have you ever thought about what a poet writes in his diary? If not, then why not give it a shot and read this fun and exquisite book, Diary of a Somebody, by Brian Bilston. The journey of a poet throughout a year is penned down in this book.Titled however suggests that it is a diary and the content in it is also in a diary entry form, but the book is plot-driven. Brian has written poems on a variety of topics, most of which no one can even think of; though I don't like most of the poems.
Although, an honest and in-depth account of a Somebody, i.e., Brian Bilston, this was just an average read, as the story becomes irritating and monotonous as the author continues to get feel envious about Toby Salt.
Read the full review on:
https://readreactreview21.wordpress.c...
An interesting stylistic experiment, but the poems are much, much better than the accompanying story, which is not well controlled enough to be too funny or emotionally impactful. The fictional Brian feels derivative of Mark from Peep Show, though of course Peep Show did it better. The poems are great though, and routinely hilarious.
I'm either getting better at rating books fairly, or reading worse books on average! Only time and more books will tell.An interesting stylistic experiment, but the poems are much, much better than the accompanying story, which is not well controlled enough to be too funny or emotionally impactful. The fictional Brian feels derivative of Mark from Peep Show, though of course Peep Show did it better. The poems are great though, and routinely hilarious.
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