Danny Baker – författare

The first hilarious volume of comedy writer, journalist, radio DJ and screenwriter Danny Baker''s memoir, and now the inspiration for the major BBC series CRADLE TO GRAVE, starring Peter Kay.''And what was our life like in this noisy, dangerous and polluted industrial pock-mark wedged into one of the capital''s toughest neighbourhoods? It was, of course, utterly magnificent and I''d give anything to climb inside it again for just one day.''In the first volume of his memoirs, Danny Baker brings his early years to life as only he knows how. With his trademark humour and eye for a killer anecdote, he takes us all the way from the council house in south-east London that he shared with his mum Betty and dad ''Spud'' (played by Peter Kay) to the music-biz excesses of Los Angeles, where he famously interviewed Michael Jackson for the NME. Laugh-out-loud funny, it is also an affectionate but unsentimental hymn to a bygone era.

The dazzlingly funny second volume of Danny Baker''s memoirs: the television years.Since my first book was published I have had countless friends and family members get in touch to say how come I hadn''t included this story or that tale. Was I ashamed of being shot twice, once up the arse, in Jamaica Road? How long should a man live with such a secret? If by retrospectively dropping my trousers every few pages I can reveal a fuller picture of myself during these years, then so be it.Besides. Being shot up the arse. In front of your mates.What else did I forget?

In this book my father dies. I almost die.*** My showbiz career winds down. And yet everyone keeps telling me it''s the funniest book I''ve ever written. If I''d known that''s what the public wanted, I''d have cancelled Pets Win Prizes and just got sick sooner. Along the way this time we encounter, among others, David Bowie, Kanye West (I think), John Cleese, Peter O''Toole, and have several adventures in the Fourth Dimension. Oh, and I can reveal the Man With The Foulest Mouth In All Show Business. Plus assorted high-kicking hoopla and a whole lot of rather stark stuff about what it''s like to be told you could be On The Way Out. *** (SPOILER ALERT: I don''t actually die.)